Blow it up!
by Observer123
Summary: "Great this just keeps getting better and better! I mean time travels, explosions and then this bombs! And what is the advisor planning? I begin to miss the time when I was able to chase carefree after a ball!" Dudley P.
1. Chapter 1

**-Hello again :D After a short break I´m back with my new story. It´s a sequel to "A new hero" so I would recommend and appreciate that you read it before you read this one. So thanks for your attention and let´s start with the story-**

"Okay… red, green or blue. Or maybe the black?" Dudley held a wire cutter in his shaking right hand. Sweat dropped down from his forehead down on the ground. "Okay, Dudley. Everything is okay. Just remember your training…. Oh I forgot. I NEVER DEFUSED A NUCLEAR WARHEAD IN TRAINING!" he shouted sarcastically to himself. The 20 Kiloton bomb lay peacefully in front of him while his world is breaking down.

He realized now that it was stupid idea to drive to the bomb instead of bringing himself to shelter. But to be honest, he had not really a choice. Dudley looked at the little LED-display on which the time until the detonation was displayed. "STOP COUNTING DOWN!" Dudley shouted at the clock. "Five minutes left" announced a recorded message from the bomb. "SHUT THE F*CK UP! Damn…"

"Dudley, what´s wrong?" Kitty asked through the speakers of the hall. She was in another room because first she had no idea how to defuse an atomic bomb –like Dudley- and second Dudley said that he needs to concentrate, she would just distract him. But she insisted on maintaining the communication. So she gave Dudley this headset-microphone and see used the speakers in the hall.

"You said you know everything about defusing bombs! You said that you are an expert!" Kitty added.  
"Uhm… Nothing wrong here! Everything is fine. No, it´s perfect. The bomb will be defused in just a… minute." He spoke into the headset-microphone. "Okay. But could you hurry up a bit? We just got I think four minutes left, so…"

"Yeah, yeah…" Dudley focused back on the bomb. The bomb would destroy the whole city but to make things worse it was planted in the reactor of the Petropolis nuclear power plant directly beside the blue pool of cooling water. In this pool lay tons of fissionable material which would multiply the bomb´s power with at least factor 100. The good thing was that Dudley didn´t knew that. He has opened a small hatch on the hull of the bomb and now a giant cable clutter was ready for a treatment.

"Okay, I need to decide!" he began to laugh desperately. "Well, at least no one is angry if I do something wrong here… No the dead aren´t angry. They´re just quiet." He tried to fight down the hopelessness that came over him. "Okay, okay. First take a deep breath." Dudley filled his lungs with the stale and guaranteed radioactive air. "Okay, next. Take a look at the clock again… Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit." He realized that the timer fall under three minutes. "Dudley…?" Kitty asked slowly.

"DAMN I´M WORKING HERE! PLEASE SHUT UP."  
"Okay, okay. I know that you´re stressed. BUT I´M STRESSED TOO! SO SNAP OUT OF IT AND GET THIS BOMB DEFUSED!" Kitty shouted back. Her voice echoed through the room.

"Okay, time for my decision. Blue… no red… no green… or the black? DAMN, I DON´T HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT I´M DOING HERE!"  
"Dudley, you know that this is your fault. You decided this! You had the chance to escape from the city!" An amused voice starts to talk to him in his head. "YOU SHUT UP TOO! AND WHAT ARE YOU UP TO ANYWAY?! NOW GET OUT OF MY HEAD IF YOU DON´T CONTRIBUTE SOMETHING CONSTRUCTIVE!"

"Okay, actually I didn´t want to intervene here anyway. I think… I hope you´ll make it" and the voice became silent. "This damn son of a…"  
"DUDLEY!" Kitty screamed again.  
"I´M DOING MY BEST DOWN HERE!"

"YOU KNOW THAT I CAN SEE YOU THROUGH THE SECURITY CAMERAS! START DOING SOMETHING! PLEASE!" The last word sounded more pleading than aggressive.  
"Okay, I´ll take the black wire." He slowly sat the wire cutter on the black wire. The time fell under one minute and thirty seconds. "Time to say goodbye…" Dudley began to sing. He closed his eyes and pressed the handles of the wire cutter together.


	2. Chapter 2

Two weeks earlier.  
Dudley sat in a little friendly looking café on a small table which was just big enough for him. He read a newspaper while drank a cup of coffee.  
"Petropolis-Bomber strikes again. 15 police officers were killed after an explosion." He read the headline with a low voice. "After eight years of peace the  
notorious so called 'Petropolis-Bomber' killed yesterday 15 police officers … Interesting" As Dudley wanted to turn the page over to the  
sport section the newspaper was snatched from him. Two big gorillas stood there grinning.

"Mr. Swan?" asked one of them.  
"Yes?" Dudley answered after he hesitated briefly. It was still hard for him to remember and to react on his cover name. He never wanted this cover name,  
he actually wanted the name Clancy Jones but his clients said that would be to strange.

"We have to talk!" the other one said. Each of them grabbed a chair and sat down on Dudley´s table which began to wobble dangerously.  
"Well, Mr. Swan we heard you snooped around a bit." He said friendly but with a threatening expression on his face to Dudley who  
tried to prevent his coffee from spilling. "Our boss wants you to stop your investigations or however you call it. So please follow us outward.  
So we can discuss this more detailed." Dudley began to smile.

"That is the funniest part of my job" he thought. He sipped at his cup of coffee, enjoyed the taste and the warmth of it and then began to speak.  
"So you want me to follow you and then you beat me up somewhere as a warning? Well, okay. I´ll play your game. But to let you know that means that  
I won't defend myself against you. Otherwise you two amateurs would have no chance. The when you´re finished I´ll wash the blood away from my face,  
drink another cup of coffee and then I will find you and kill you.

I begin with you Garry" He addressed the gorilla on the left side of him. "So that the good Leopold here have a few more days with Sharon and his kids…  
Their names were Carl and Tanja, weren´t they?" He looked asking to the gorilla on the right who just dropped his smile and started starring shocked at him.  
"But I´m not sure about the best order. Should I first kill your wife and then you or… Well, I think I´ll decide this spontaneous. It will depend on  
how much I want you to suffer. And, of course, I don´t want your kids grow up without a father and a mother so I maybe kill them too. Let´s see…  
So, are you really tough enough to play this game?"

From the gorillas came no more sound. They just stood up and went out of the café. Dudley grinned complacently. "That was easy… I thought that they would at least say something or try to threaten me. Hehe, it´s true barking dogs never bite… even if the dogs are gorillas." Dudley´s bluff completely worked. Of course he would have never done this, even if he could but the thought of killing someone just to have revenge on somebody was repugnant to him. Except this person´s name was Jeffrey Sullivan.  
Dudley finished his coffee. "So this job is now completely over." He leaned back in his chair and remembered the last three months. Much has happened.

He now had two jobs. The first one was his normal job as a T.U.F.F. agent, a relatively well paid job with his charming partner Kitty Katswell, his boss the chief and Keswick. The second one was his new job as a 'professional' hero with no payment and a really strange boss who calls himself 'the adviser'. This guy was really totally different from every being on the planet. "Like a monkey without any hair and shorter arms… weird" Dudley pictured the advisor and got a bit disgusted by this. But at least he was friendly and the job was really interesting.

He learned through this new unofficial job a lot of new cool stuff, especially because the adviser let him run through a terrible hard training. A training which the adviser hadn´t guided him through, no he had a little rat guy for that. A guy called Simon who taught Dudley everything he could in the very short time of three months. For example how to fight with things that are not even weapons like a spoon or how to lie right or how to infiltrate a building.

But it wasn´t enough time for Simon to teach Dudley everything he knew. "It seems like everyone who is in touch with the adviser has a second job in his 'real life'."  
Dudley let his thoughts wander and just as he thought that he also could separate his 'real life' from his second job a voice startled him.

"A..a..agent Puppy? Is that you?" Dudley sat frozen on his chair as he heard Keswick´s voice behind him. "Uhm… no I´m Jason… Bourne". So much about 'how to lie right'.  
"Come on really. My cover name is Jason Swan! Damn" thought Dudley, he could slap himself for this mistake.  
"Oh so we´re in this m..m..movie?" Keswick walked around him and sat down on one of the empty chairs on which the gorillas sat a few minutes ago. "What was that D..D..Dudley?"

"I don´t know what you mean."  
"I mean the those two t..t..thug you just chased away! Just by using words!"  
"They were old friends." Lied Dudley.

"Oh, so you threaten your o..o..old friends to kill them and their families?" Keswick looked penetrating at Dudley.  
"Boy, you got good ears." Dudley sighed "I think it´s useless to deny this?"  
"Yeah, so w..w..where did you learned this amazing and also terrifying way of lying?"

"I learned it by an old rat who always said: '_Puppy, the best lies are that ones that aren´t lies_'" Keswick looked a bit frightened at him. "Okay, and who sent these thugs to beat you up?"  
"Franklin Edwards."  
"That investigative journalist?"

"Yes, as he investigated he stumbled over something." Dudley looked around and lowered his voice "He found out that the Chinese government has recently developed a new kind of highly destructive weapon. Even our spies hadn´t discovered what he found out!"  
"B..b..but how?"

"That´s a really good question. But I think he done some really bad things to get these information. He maybe also tortured people because you can´t bribe these Chinese loyalists." Made Dudley clear.  
"And what was your part in this story?"  
"My, let´s call them clients, wanted me to let everything what Edwards collected disappear."

"But Dudley!" Exclaimed Keswick shocked.  
"Please, quiet!" The people around them had turned to them and stared.  
"Oh, I f..f..forgot." Keswick lowered his voice again. "But the g..g..government needs to know this! We have to p..p..prepare ourselves against this threat."

"And then what? You know what the government mostly does. They will attack China because of this. The relations between us and them are tensed.  
So tensed that I would call them bad! If Edwards had published this it would lead us directly to the third world war! And this time I´m not sure if we would be  
on the winning side… or if anybody would be left who could call himself a winner."

Keswick didn´t answer on that because he knew that what Dudley said was true.  
"Sometimes the little things have a great impact." Dudley added.  
"Okay Dudley, but who are those c..c..clients?"

"I´m not allowed to talk about that." They stopped speaking and just stared at each other for a while. Keswick stared because he wanted to know who these clients were and Dudley stared because he wanted to say that he won´t tell anything. Both kept doing this until Dudley stood up and laid twenty Dollars on the table.  
"Keswick. I beg you not to tell anyone about my second 'job'." Said Dudley but without any pleading in his voice.

"Hey, wait. You probably saved the w..w..world. Why shouldn´t I tell that to everyone?"  
"It´s important that I´m able to act unnoticed. And also it´s important that exactly this issue not came out."  
"Okay, that´s r…r…right of course… I´ll do you that favor. But you o..o..owe me one!"

Keswick had of course recognized that Dudley was easily susceptible for blackmail in this moment and used his chance cold-blooded.  
"Whatever you want, Keswick."  
"I´ll come b..b..back to that later" Keswick started to laugh evilly while Dudley left the café a bit terrified.


	3. Chapter 3

Dudley sat angry in front of a chess board in the middle of the Petropolis park. It was Sunday and that meant it was time to play chees again. He didn´t show his anger as he moved his queen three squares back. "Check!"  
"Oh, not bad!" admitted Roxanna. "You learn fast but…" she moved bishop across the board. "You can´t mess with the master. Check mate."

"Damn!" shouted Dudley and beat his fist on the chess board so that all pieces fell over.  
"What´s wrong Dudley? Why are you so angry?" The elder fox asked.  
"It´s… nothing."

"Come on, what is it? Is it about your move from your mother´s house?"  
"No, that worked perfectly. Mom was even quite happy about that. By the way, thanks for helping me finding a new apartment. This one is much better than the one I wanted to rent first." Dudley said thankful.

"What was so bad about the one you thought about first?"  
"The neighborhood. I would have lived between hordes of crack dealers and street gangs if I had taken that one. Even though if I can dance good enough to earn their respect… I don´t want to do this every day."

"What is it then?" Roxanne probed. She knew Dudley good enough by now to know that there was something. If you play chess with somebody every Sunday evening for two hours then you know this person. "Is it about work?"  
"No, well, it´s complicated." Replied Dudley.

"Oh, I know! It´s about that cat girl isn´t it? What was her name? Kathy?"  
"It´s Kitty! Why can´t you and my Mom remember her name! And no, we´re just friends."  
"Just friends you say, huh? I don´t think so. I know how you look at her!"

"Roxanna" sighed Dudley. "Could we please change the subject?"  
It was terrible. Now Dudley was not only angry, he was annoyed, too. Roxanne was sometimes as annoying as his mother. She pestered him with the same questions like his mother and the worst thing was that she always beat him in this damn game. That was like to get an extra slap in the face after every conversation.

And even he became better and better after every game it was still like an adult playing against a two year old toddler. In every game she wasn´t even one move ahead, she was one game ahead. All in all very frustrating but nevertheless he liked this fox. If he had a problem he could talk to her no matter about what. She was a real friend. "How about a new game?" Roxanne already began to set up the pieces but Dudley had to refuse her offer.

"Sorry, not today. I have to get up really early next morning. We´ll see next week?" Roxanne answered with the same words she always uses when Dudley answers this question "Same time, same place." Dudley left the park and enjoyed the warm rays of the sun which shined on his fur on every step back to his car. It wasn´t really his car but this week he had the T.U.F.F. car and the good thing about it was that it was a convertible.

Dudley always drove as fast as he could when it was so sunny like it was on this day. As he arrived at home and entered his apartment, a renovated old building with big windows which let in the light of the setting sun, he saw the light on his answering machine flashing. He walked to it and pressed the button to listen to the message. "One new message. Today 4:45 pm. 'Hey Dudley, this is Kitty. Do you still have the files on this bank robbery case? You said that you wanted to go through them to find something. Well, I need them now to finish the report. So if you still have them would you be so kindly to bring them to my house, today if possible? Thanks, bye.' No more further massages."

Dudley sat down on his couch and buried his head in his hands. "I´m so tired." He yawned "I need to sleep! But Kitty needs those files… I´m going to bring them to her, say hello and go back home then." With this plan Dudley set off to the apartment of his partner. He normally wouldn´t do that for anybody but Kitty wasn´t anybody. After a twenty minute long bus ride, he did because he wanted to spare some gas, on which he was only two times threatened by a punk with a switchblade, what was totally normal when you were driving with the bus in Petropolis, he arrived at Kitty´s apartment house.

"Man, this city is crazy. Old ladies get threaten by these punks with they´re knifes and nobody gives a damn!" he fought as he walked up the stairs to Kitty´s door. As he arrived there he knocked at it. Kitty opened the door dressed with an apron over her usual clothes and a rushed expression on her face. "Good, you're her!" she pulled Dudley into the apartment. "Uhm… I´m just here to bring you those files and…"  
"Forget the files! I have worse problems then this stupid little report."

"Okay what´s wrong then, chef Kitty?" Dudley couldn´t resist to grin. He never saw Kitty so rushed and exhausted and also he saw her never in an apron. She was usually the calm person who also tries to calm everybody else down. "Don´t make fun about me!" she hissed. "My parents sitting in my dining room and expect me to cook for them!"  
"But you can´t cook."

"Thanks captain obvious! I know that! That´s why I ordered some Italian food from around the corner. I try to make them believe that I cooked it. And you will help me!"  
"I… how?" asked Dudley confused.  
"I don´t know. Talk with them, or do some tricks or I don´t know but you have to distract them until I returned with the food! And then you go on while we eat so they maybe don´t realize then that it taste too good to be made by me." Before Dudley could answer or decide if he wants to be part of this lie he was pushed by Kitty into the dining room.

"Look who came. It´s Dudley, my coworker. Sit down Dudley" She pushed him rudely to the table. Dudley looked around first. He was often in Kitty´s apartment but he had never seen this room before. A small yellow painted room with ugly pictures on the wall and without a window. "What is that? Wait…" he looked at the ceiling. A lonely light bulb hung from it. That reminded him. This is usually Kitty´s gun room, a paradise for gun loving people. You could find there everything from berretta to bazooka.

But now the gun paradise changed into a dining hell. Dudley now suddenly saw that the two people on the table stared at him with a expression on their faces that could mean something like 'Why is this idiot staring at the walls and the ceiling?' Dudley sat down and apologized. "Sorry, I´m just a bit tired. I´m Dudley Puppy, nice to meet you."  
"I´m Medline Katswell, Kitty´s mom." said the female cat on the table.  
"I´m Jack Harrison, Kitty´s father." Said the male cat beside Kitty´s mother.

"Harrison? Why Harrison? Why they don´t have the same name?" thought Dudley. He was about to ask this question but Jack was faster.  
"So you´re working together with my daughter?"  
"Yes that´s right. She first trained me but know we´re full partners."

"And you two also meet in your leisure time?"  
"Yes, of course. She´s my best friend. We´re together almost all the time."  
Jack came closer with his face to Dudley and asked with loud voice. "Okay, what do you intend to do with my daughter?"

"Pardon?" asked Dudley confused.  
"Oh you know what I mean!"  
"Okay that´s not small talk, that´s an interrogation!" thought Dudley "And a real quick one, too! I mean even this guy Mel would take his time to torture me first!  
But he doesn´t have the time for such nice things."

"You haven´t answered me!" called Jack.  
"Nothing. We´re just friends, nothing more."  
"NOTHING?!" shouted Jack and had almost jumped over the table if Medline hadn´t held him back.

"MY LITTLE GIRL DESERVES MORE THAN NOTHING! UNDERSTOOD!" Dudley just nodded as he sat crouched on his chair. "Jack, settle down." Said Medline to him. "Okay." Jack turned away from his wife back to Dudley. "Well, when will you propose to my daughter?"  
Dudley was already so annoyed that he almost had said: 'Maybe Wensday, let´s see.' But luckily Kitty finally released him by coming in the room with the dishes.

"Why did this take so long?" hissed Dudley to her "I had to get the ordered food in without them hearing me. I want to see you climbing up the façade  
of a building without a free hand!"  
The rest of the diner Dudley remained silent. Not because he had nothing to say, no it was because he was too afraid that Jack would jump over the table and beat him up if he would say something wrong. After the diner Kitty´s parents left and she and Dudley were alone in the apartment.

"Okay, now that we´re alone I have to ask you something. WHAT THE HELL WAS THIS?"  
"Hey, relax Dudley it´s over." Kitty seemed very relieved now.  
"True, but your father almost beat me up! What´s wrong with him? And what have you told him about us?"

"I just told him that we are coworkers, nothing more. Why?"  
Dudley told Kitty the whole story from the moment she left the room until that releasing moment she came back. "That was my Dad´s standard boyfriend interrogation program. Don´t worry, he does this with every male being that is somehow in touch with me… He even did this to the mailman!"

"Well, that leads me again to the first question. What´s wrong with him?"  
"Nothing, he´s a good guy but sometimes a bit overprotecting. He just wants the best for me." Kitty seemed a bit sad.  
"That´s okay I think… By the way, why has your father another surname than your mother?"

"Because he´s my stepfather." Answered Kitty without any more explanation. But Dudley wanted to know more. "And what happened to your real Dad?"  
"DON´T DARE CALL HIM LIKE THAT!" cried Kitty out. "HE´S NOT MY 'REAL DAD' HE´S JUST MY GENETIC BEGETTER! NOTHING MORE!" She stood angry and with her hands clenched to fist in front of Dudley. He had to calm her or she would give him the beating of his life. "I u..u..understood" he stammered like Keswick.

"GOOD!" she said and turned around, sat down on the table and drank out of an open bottle of wine. "Something bad must have happened between her and her 'genetic begetter'." It aroused Dudley´s interest but he wasn´t sure if asking her more questions was a good idea. "Kitty, do you want to talk about this?"  
"Actually, no. I never told this to somebody and I won´t begin now."

"Let´s make a deal." Suggested Dudley. "I tell you something about me that I never told anyone and then you´ll tell me your story, okay?" Kitty sighed and looked in Dudley´s face. He smiled friendly at her. "I know that you will keep on and on with this if I don´t agree. But I hope your story is good and nothing like 'I sometimes drink toilette water' or something."

"You will tell me your story, don´t worry." Thought Dudley and began to tell her the story about his father. The story he already told her dream version in this dream scenario which was created by the advisor three months ago. The story had an great impact on dream Kitty so he thought it would maybe also had an impact on real Kitty. And it seemed to work. Kitty listened to the story with her jaw open. "Got you!" he thought as Kitty tried to search for the right words. "I think I fulfilled my part of the deal, so…"

"Okay." Kitty took a deep breath and begun. "My 'Dad' was a monster." She said, stood up and turned towards the wall. "He beaten up Mom and me and also done this to my older sister. But this wasn´t even the worst thing he done! He walked one night to my sister´s room and…" tears began to form in her eyes. She turned around and looked in directly Dudley´s eyes. He knew what she wanted to tell. "Oh god…" he whispered.

"Yes" answered Kitty. "And that bastard tried that on me, too. But I was lucky. An unknown guy who saw us from the street through the window was able to get into my room and save me from him. He said he was T.U.F.F. agent."  
"That guy is a hero!"

"Yes he is." Said Kitty with a smile that turns into a sad face again. Dudley came closer to her and hugged her. "It felt good to talk to you about that." She cried. Dudley held her in his arms and said. "Come on, I´ll cheer you up! We go out for dinner tomorrow, just the two of us. What do you think?"  
"That sounds good." Sniffed Kitty. "Dudley you can release me from the hug. I´m okay"

"Oh, of course" Dudley stepped away from her. "Well, I think I´ll go now. We have to get up tomorrow very early."  
"Yes that´s true. Bye and thank you."  
"Any time Kitty, any time." meant Dudley and left the apartment.


	4. Chapter 4

**-Hey everyone. I´m trying a new layout in this chapter. So, does it become easier to read or should I return to the old layout? Thanks in advance ;D -**

"HI-GEE-GEE" shouted Dudley and hit the sandbag. The morning went relatively normal compared to the last evening.  
Just the usual Monday morning briefing with the chief who was yelling at some agents who made mistakes.  
And on this morning it was not him!

The chief usually always yells at him but this time not. "This is an awesome morning! I can´t see anything that could spoil this day!"  
But the day spoiler already opened the door of the training hall.

"Good morning A..a..agent Puppy."  
"You´re right Keswick. It´s a wonderful morning. What can I do for you?"  
"You remember the conversation we had in this café? I need you to do me a favor."  
"Really today? Can´t this wait until, I don´t know, next week or something?"

"No. And you know that this favor will keep me silent about you're a..a..activities."  
"Okay." Dudley sighed. "What do you want?"  
"Meet me in 15 minutes in the lab. I will explain everything." Said Keswick and walked away.  
"And I thought that this is going to be a good day. Anyway, let´s take a shower."

After 15 minutes and a quick shower Dudley walked into Keswick´s lab. All windows were darkened and Keswick stood beside  
his projector in the middle of the room. "Dudley, c..c..close the door." Dudley closed it and walked to Keswick.

"Keswick, you have to decide if you call me Agent Puppy or Dudley. It´s kind of confusing for me."  
"Not for me. But If it´s such a b..b..big deal for you I maybe call you A..a..agent Dudley? Or Puppy? Or maybe Cindy, you can c..c..choose."  
"Okay. Everything except Cindy" he said laughing. "Now back to this little favor. I see you have a presentation for me."

"You see right. You know I l..l..love presentations." He used a little remote to start the projector.  
On the wall a picture of an elder German shepherd in a lab coat flashed up on the wall.  
"Dr. Johann Wilhelm Möbius…"

"Okay, he´s as good as dead." Dudley reloaded his gun to emphasize his words.  
"God no! I don´t want to see him dead! That´s just part of the presentation. Let me finish!"  
"That was a joke Keswick… settle down." Laughed Dudley amused about the fact that Keswick  
believed that he would kill somebody just because he asked him to do that.

Keswick pressed another button on his remote. A complicated diagram was visible on the wall now.  
"Möbius is the inventor of a theory that opens us completely new ways to use the fabric of space and time.  
This system is so complicated that I even understand it. But he haven´t published this theory yet! The theory exists just on paper right now."

"So you want me to steal the documents about it and bring them to you?"  
"No, I want you to meet up with him and to persuade him to destroy the documents he has about his idea."

"But why destroying it?" asked Dudley confused. He had thought that Keswick would want these plans to line his pockets with  
the fame and money that comes through such a great new invention. It seemed that Dudley misjudge Keswick.  
"You said to me that you destroyed the documents that could cause big troubles. This theory could cause big troubles, too.  
R...R…Really big. It´s just too dangerous! We don´t know how to control an eventual t..t..technology which could get developed out of it!"

"And you think I can persuade him?"  
"Just do the same what you d..d..done with these gorillas. I would do it myself if I had the t..t..time.  
And I think you are much more p…p...persuasive. And…" Keswick wanted to name another point why Dudley was the best for the job but he interrupted him.

"And you leave me alone if I can persuade him."  
"Yes."  
"I´m on my way!" said Dudley and ran out of the lab and headed towards the garage.

"Okay, if I´m fast enough this could become a good day again." He jumped into the T.U.F.F. car.  
"Oh, wait Keswick forgot to give me the address of this Möbius…"  
"I haven´t f..f..forgot this!" shouted Keswick out of breath behind him. "Mabel street 24!"

"Thanks" yelled Dudley back and started the engine. "Mabel street" thought Dudley while he was driving.  
"That´s so not far away from Mom´s house. I could visit her afterwards."  
Dudley reached the Mabel Street very quick because the traffic on Monday was not too heavy and got out of the car.

He walked towards the door of a small terraced house which didn´t differ from the other houses around except of one thing.  
A giant electricity cable lay in the front garden and led to the house. Dudley eyed the cable. "The Doctor seems to need much electricity…"

He knocked at the door. An old shepherd opened the door. "Hello?" This guy was guaranteed Doctor Möbius but the picture Keswick  
showed Dudley was a maybe older one, at least 20 years older. "Hello, Doctor Möbius. My name is Dudley Puppy. Keswick sent me."

"Keswick? Who is Keswick?"  
"He´s a scientist."  
"Well, you have to be more concrete young man."

"A little guy who stammers."  
"As a said, more concrete." Repeated Möbius. "I know tons of scientists who are small and stammer.  
And I also know some scientists who are tall and can speak without repeating the words unintentionally."

Möbius was about to close the door and went back into his house as he stopped and asked.  
"Wait. Is Keswick the guy who invented the waffle maker which spit acid?"  
"Yes, that guy."  
"Oh, great. Come in."

Dudley followed Möbius into his house. "Sit down" The Doctor pointed at an old dusty armchair.  
Dudley sat down and the old Shepard done the same on an armchair that stood towards the other. "Okay, what does my former student want?"  
"So Keswick is a former student of you?"

"Yes, but I forgot his name. I just knew that one of my students which name began with the letter K invented an acid spitting waffle maker.  
That is strange… I usually never forget a name or a face… also yours is very familiar to me… Anyway, what does he want?"

"He said I should talk with you about your new invention or theory or whatever." Dudley tried to be carefully about this topic.  
The Doctor must be definitely proud about what he created. "From where does he know that? That´s top secret!"

"I have no idea but he said you should think about publishing such uncontrollable and dangerous…"  
"Oh, of course the guy who invented an acid spitting waffle maker wants to tell me what´s dangerous!"  
Möbius stood up from his chair and walked to a little hazelnut colored wall unit. He opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle of whiskey.

"He wants you to destroy all your research results." Said Dudley slowly and carefully. But instead of getting angry Möbius just began to laugh.  
"What´s so funny?"  
"I know what Keswick is up to. And I also already saw this coming. But it´s too late."

"What do you mean with too late?" Dudley looked at the old dog who filled a glass which he had from the same wall unit with whiskey.  
"One month earlier, when I was with a heavy heart about to burn the research of the last 14 years, guys in black suits came in and stole everything I had."

"Well, okay. But what am I supposed to tell Keswick?"  
Möbius turned around and looked Dudley angry in his eyes.  
"Tell him that the government is raping science for their own disgusting aims, again!  
Say to him death will be spread if it works, terrible wars, little boy and fat man… and if it don´t works it will be worse! Tell him! GO TELL HIM!" yelled Möbius in rage.

"Okaaay." Said Dudley and walked slowly backwards away from Möbius and out of the door.  
He jumped into the T.U.F.F. mobile. "Wow… strange guy. Well, back to Keswick. But wait I first visit Mom, it´s not far."  
And as he finished his thought he was already at his mother´s house.

So he entered the house and closed the door behind him. "Mom! Are you here? I just came by and thought…"  
Dudley fell silent as he saw that not his Mom was in the house but another well known 'friend'.

"Hello Dudley" I said with I smile on my face.  
"What are you doing here?"  
"What, no hug for the old adviser?"

"What are you doing here?" repeated Dudley and I saw a mixture of anger and fear in his face.  
Dudley knew that my appearance in this whole situation meant trouble.  
"I am here to give you your next mission."

"Why don´t you do this like the last time. In a dream?!" he shouted at me.  
"I thought a personal talk would be much nicer."  
"Nicer?! This is dangerous! What if somebody is seeing you?"

"I will delete his memory. Easy thing. Anyway your mission…"  
"No! No more missions! I´m done with that!" Dudley interrupted me.  
"Okay. I can´t force you to do this."

Dudley looked triumphing at me. "Exactly!"  
"Well, I go and tell the planet that it should save itself." He just looked dumb at me as I countered with that.  
"Okay" he sighed. "What I have to do today."

I walked up to him and patted on his head. "That is right. And this time it is very easy… for me. Just do what Keswick wants you to do."  
"I already done that." Meant Dudley. "No, I mean that what he wants next from you. Good luck."  
And then I disappeared.

"This guy… is really weird."  
"Who´s weird sweety?" asked Dudley´s mother who just came into her house.  
"Nobody Mom. Nobody"


	5. Chapter 5

"HE S..S..SAID WHAT?!" asked Keswick unbelieving.  
"Well, yes." Admitted Dudley. "I think I also used the original wording. Oh and he said something like little boy and fat man…  
but I have no idea what he could have meant."

"Oh no, oh no, oh NO!" Keswick began to run in circles and to hyperventilate. He pulled out an inhaler.  
"We… have… to… d..d..destroy" coughed Keswick. He put the inhaler on his lips and breathed in.  
"Keswick calm down! What do we have to destroy?"

"Whatever they have b..b..built!"  
"Keswick, slowly and easy, for me." Keswick stopped running around.  
"The theories were u..u..uploaded on a secret government server and a half hour ago I managed to c..c..crack the password!  
I´ve read through all the theories and now I have my own theory about what a m..m..machine that uses the theory of Möbius."

"Keswick, you used the word theory in the last sentence very often.  
I say it again, slowly and easy."  
Keswick closed his eyes and tried to put his confused thoughts into order.

"It seems they´re working on some kind of p..p..portal technology."  
"Well, that sounds not so bad at all."

"Yeah but if this device w..w..works the government will use it for its own goals, like Möbius said.  
Wars will be much easier and deadly! You told me about these t..t..tensed relationships we have with China?  
We would win a war with that p..p..portal in about one hour after the war d..d..declaration.

Little boy and fat man! The n..n..names of the bombs thrown on Hiroshima and Nagasaki!  
You just teleport a bomb to the place you want it and then… b..b..boom!  
And if it has a malfunction it will rip an u..u..uncontrollable hole in the space-time.  
And you don´t want to be in this u..u..universe if this happens."

"And is there a good reason that second could happen?" Dudley stayed skeptical.  
The first thing sounded logical for him. The lower the risk is to lose a war the more likely it is that a country starts a war.  
And this portal definitely lowers the risk. But he had no idea about the second thing.

"Dudley, there are just two people on this planet who could u..u..understand what Möbius posited and that´s he and me!"  
Even if Keswick tried to let this sound like a persuasive point it sounded for Dudley just arrogant.

"Well, then you´re maybe also the only one who can fix this. Good luck."  
Dudley was about to turn around and go but Keswick clang to his leg.  
"No Dudley. I´m s..s..sorry, okay! Please help me to d..d..destroy this!"  
Dudley walked on like he didn´t notice the weight on his leg.

"Please, you´re the only one I know who can do it. I´ll do e..e..everything!"  
Dudley stopped walking and looked at Keswick. "Everything you say, huh?"  
"Yeah!"

"Okay. Then I want some awesome black glasses. They´ll make me thousands times cooler!"  
"Deal." Meant Keswick confused.  
"Even if Dudley became more mature the last m..m..months, he´s still a big child." Keswick also thought.

"Okay, just tell me where and I´ll be back in an hour or two."  
"Two kilometers away from the city limits there´s a farm. And in the barn of this farm there´s an elevator.  
Take this elevator and use this to get into the secret military station." Keswick handed him a ID card.

"From where do you have all this information?"  
"I´m watching this since the they have built this m..m..military station.  
A good friend of mine is working there, but not as a s..s..scientist. So I knew that they wanted to build something d..d..down there, something bad.

And as my contact mentioned the name of my old professor I became a..a..alerted.  
So I´ve tried since this time to crack the p..p..password of the station."  
"You don´t really trust the government, do you?" asked Dudley.

"No, I l..l..learned to trust no one who haven´t earned my trust. But I trust you, Dudley.  
That´s why I s..s..sent you to Möbius because I wanted to know if he work with them. He could c..c..control this.  
If he works with them I wouldn´t ask you to d..d..destroy this machine."

"Oh, and I thought you sent me there because I owe you a favor."  
"Yes but your also my friend and I t..t..trust you." said Keswick with a disarming smile.  
"Okay, I´m on my way." Dudley walked out of the lab and heard a last  
"Good luck" from Keswick.

"Four hours till the date with Kitty. I should hurry up to save the world."  
He said and ran out of the building to his car.

Five hours later sat Kitty on a table in the fanciest restaurant of Petropolis and waited for Dudley.  
The little bread sticks which usually stand in a pot in the middle of the table were already eaten by her.  
She also ordered another basket of bread and the amount she already consumed was almost unhealthy.  
Also bottle of wine she ordered 30 minutes ago was already emptied.

She hated it to get stood up. She sat there and stared into the flame of a candle that burned on her table.  
And like the candle also something burned in her. The anger. Oh, she was angry. Really angry.  
"I´m going to kill him!" she thought.

"I´ll walk tomorrow straight to his desk and kill this moron." In her head she walked through some scenarios.  
In some of them she just yelled at Dudley and this big kid began to cry and ran out of the building and  
in some others she… well… just did what she already said.

She killed him. To explain this you have to know that Kitty was not only angry she also was disappointed.  
Yesterday she finally told somebody a story that she haven´t told anybody before.  
She trusted somebody for the first time enough to tell this story and the next day the same guy betrayed her trust.

After further 15 minutes of waiting she decided to leave the restaurant.  
She grabbed her purse and stood up from her chair. "Excuse me madam. I suppose you forgot to pay."  
An old penguin waiter stopped her. "Send the bill to Dudley Puppy!"

"Very well, madam!" The waiter noted something on a little notebook and withdrew.  
Kitty walked out of the restaurant and stepped into the warm summer night.  
"Dudley, why are you doing this to me?" asked Kitty herself.

Dudley meanwhile had other problems. Very serious problems that apologized his absence.  
"At least I tried to be in time at the date." He thought as he was surrounded by more than  
twenty government agents in black suits with their guns pointed at him.

Twenty little red dots which came from the aiming lasers aimed at different parts of his body.  
Some were even on parts on which no guy never ever shoot another guy.  
Luckily his fighting-suit was almost bullet proofed. But taking a bullet also hurts when you´re bullet proofed.

"Boys, we can work this out. Just put your guns down!"  
he shouted at the crowd of hostile agents standing in front of him.  
"Put the thing in your hand down or we open fire of you!" one of them screamed back.

"But I need this for my diversionary tactic!"  
"What?!" asked the whole crowed in unison.  
But it was too late. The deafening noise of an explosion was heard from behind them.

The most of the agents hit the floor and others ran around dizzy and confused.  
"The trick with the dead man´s switch always works."  
Now Dudley had the chance to bring his mission to a successful end.

He had no time to sabotage the machine which looked like a big archway  
but with much technical bits and pieces and wires around it.  
So he jumped into a little chamber with a big glass window, what maybe was the control room.

There he ran in front of something that looked for Dudley like the main control panel.  
He had maybe five or four seconds until they would open the fire on him. Dudley looked at panel.  
"Much flashing buttons! Better press them all. That will fulfill its purpose!"

He began to push randomly any button that he saw. He heard how the glass of the window cracked and bullets flew around his head.  
The agents seemed to have regained their full consciousness.  
"So much about the diversionary tactic!"

Dudley hid under the panel and tried to not get hit by the ricochets, what means that he curled up to a ball.  
But also from there he tried to push the buttons. "Damn, come on!" he screamed and hit another button.  
This one finally caused a reaction on the machine.

The archway hummed and moan and in it a big purple mass made of energy flared up.  
"Warning! Dark energy flare on a critical level. Warning! Dark.."  
a recorded voice sounded from speakers on the ceiling repeated this message.

"Okay, I think that shouldn´t happen!" thought Dudley.  
He wanted to crawl out of the room to avoid the gunshots as he heard that there were no more gunshots.  
As he cautiously stood up he looked around.

The agents must have fled from here as they saw that the device began to work and  
they heard the word critical through the speakers. He walked out of the room and looked at the bright shining archway.  
"Okay how to prevent this collapse of space and time? Maybe like this!"

He pulled out his gun and fired his whole magazine on the device. Giant Lightings flashed out of it.  
"Hell, yeah! Is there any problem that a gun can´t solve? Now let´s get out of here!"  
Dudley turned around and looked into the barrel of a gun.

"Freeze!" shouted one of the black suit guys who either came back or stayed after the warning of the voice from the speaker.  
"You evil son of a b*tch!" the agent said. "Give me just one reason not to shot you!"

Dudley hadn´t the time to discuss about the value of his life with that guy.  
He grabbed the agent´s gun, pulled him towards him and beat his fist on the suit guy´s chin.  
He broke down immediately. "Puppy punch! Always works!" Dudley laughed.

But his laughter was soon interrupted by another explosion. But this time he hadn´t caused it.  
He looked confused around and saw that it came from the hallway.  
It was collapsed for some reason! The only escape was collapsed!

Also he saw that a lightning from the machine stroke into the ceiling which began to fall.  
The same must have happened to the hallway.  
Dudley had no way back, there was no escape. Then he remembered the archway.

"Keswick talked about portals… Better than struggling with tons of reinforced concrete!"  
He ran towards the archway which now glowed with a blue light. He looked back one last time.  
"Damn, the suit guy! I can´t leave him to die. I´ll not leave him behind!"

He sprinted back to the unconsciousness agent and grabbed his arm.  
He tried to lift him on his shoulder but he was too heavy. So he dragged him through the rain of stone.  
Dudley didn´t look at the agent. He just had the archway in his mind and his sight.

"This is the only chance!" Dudley became faster with every step he walked even though he had to drag this agent.  
Pure adrenaline rushed through his veins. He was right in front of the archway and ran through it without hesitating  
but with his hands clung to the suit guy´s wrist. No man should left behind.


	6. Chapter 6

"WHERE IS HE?!" shouted Kitty as she walked into the entrance hall of the T.U.F.F. building. The hall was empty.  
Not even somebody was on the reception counter. Kitty ignored this fact completely and walked to the elevators.  
She first thought about taking the stairs but that would led to the problem that she would let too much steam off.

And she wanted to save her anger for Dudley. As she stood in the lift an she knew that it was the right decision  
because the annoying elevator music made her just angrier. The doors opened and she tramped through the office.  
She saw a cluster of people standing in front of the chief´s office door.

"I bet this idiot is there! Maybe he´s also the reason for this crowd!" She surged through the people and  
saw the chief standing on his rostrum with Keswick beside him. Both had sad looks on their faces.  
"What´s going on here?" asked Kitty with anger in her voice. Suddenly everybody turned to her with that sad look on her face.

Around thirty faces with the same expression looked at her face. It looked like somebody copied that face and  
passed this copy around so everyone could pin it on their heads. "Why, do all of you staring at me?"

"Kitty…" the chief raised his voice softly. "There was an accident…" Kitty´s heart sank into her boots.  
"…and Agent Puppy was involved in it. He…" the chief´s voice cracked. "No. Please no! God no!" begged Kitty.

"he died…"  
"NO! YOU LIE!"  
"I´m sorry Kitty."  
"That´s just a joke, isn´t it? Dudley will come around the corner in a second. I know it!"  
Kitty began to cry and screamed. "Come out Dudley! It was funny but now it´s over!"

More and more tears ran down her cheek. She rushed through the building and searched for Dudley.  
In the chief´s office, in the lab in the garage and in the office. She searched under every desk in every corner in every room.  
"PLEASE COME OUT!"

She finally stopped searching and leaned back at a wall with her face buried in her hands.  
The other agents surrounded Kitty, luckily the chief called them back from her. "You others! Get back to work!"  
The crowd dissolved fast but Kitty stayed on the wall. Keswick walked to her and took her hand.

"Kitty, come with me to the c..c..chief´s office"  
"No, I have to wait here for him. He´ll be here soon." Keswick pulled her into the chief´s office and closed the door.  
Kitty looked at Keswick and the chief and wiped the tears out of her eyes.

"What happened?" she asked.  
"Dudley drove yesterday on a road near the c..c..cliff and he lost control of his car and fall into the o..o..ocean. His corpse…"  
Keswick stopped as he saw the tears that arose in Kitty´s eyes again.

He felt bad for what happened and he knew that he was the one who´s fault this was.  
As Dudley didn´t returned from his mission yesterday he hacked into the network of the military station again.  
And saw a tape of the security cameras. He saw how Dudley destroyed the room and walked through the portal.

Keswick knew that the chance that Dudley survived this was almost 0.0001 percent. So he used the last part of the night to  
fake a death for Dudley. He knew that Dudley had a date with Kitty, so he searched for the best spot to fake an accident.  
The cliff road was perfect.

He drove the T.U.F.F. mobile over it and that was all he had to do except of deleting the tapes of the security cameras  
from the military server but kept one copy. Nobody would expect to find a corpse because the currents under the cliff drag  
everything into the ocean. It wasn´t the perfect crime but very close to it and every average sociopath would be proud of him.

"I waited for him… I was so angry… I said these things…" Kitty covered her mouth with her hands.  
All what she said and thought about hurting Dudley or even killing him and then...  
"Kitty, his dead isn´t your fault!" The chief tried to calm her down. Kitty didn´t looked at him. She didn´t want to talk to anyone  
now and the chief knew that. He sighed and turned to Keswick.

"Keswick, please call Mrs. Puppy and…"  
"No!" shouted Kitty startled. "I´ll tell her."  
"No Kitty, I don´t think that it´s a good idea…."  
"But she deserves more than just a phone call!"

Even if this was a standard T.U.F.F. procedure the chief knew that someone should tell it to Peg personally.  
She deserved more than just a phone call. Damn, Dudley deserved more!

"And you fell strong enough to manage that?"  
"No, but somebody has to do it. And no one knew him better than me." Kitty admitted.  
"Then go." Kitty walked out of the door and Keswick said. "Why did you l..l..let her go?"

"Because I know her. She always closes herself in such situations. Maybe a confrontation with Mrs. Puppy helps her to handle her pain better."  
"I hope you´re r..r..right chief. Otherwise we will h..h..hurt Kitty very much."

While she drove the T.U.F.F. van Kitty always looked at the passenger seat. Normally Dudley would sit there and get on her nerves.  
But it was so quiet. She heard just the sound of the engine. And she hated that. She never knew how she would miss  
Dudley´s pointless talking and just wished that somebody would start to talk about that stupid ball-in-the-cup game.

Then a bitter thought came slowly to her mind. "I will never see him again." She thought and immediately tried to repress that thought.  
But the more she tried to repress it the greater impact it had. "I will never see him again" she now spoke out. "  
No more chew-toys, no more 'hey Kitty', no more fighting crime together… no more Dudley!"

As she turned the van left into the Petsburg-avenue and stopped in a free parking space she tried hard to fight the tears.  
In moments like this she preferred it to be alone. Nobody would see her crying if she would be alone and  
no one would judge her for her tears. But this had to be done.

Kitty got out of the van and walked to the house. As she stood in front of the door she finally asked herself the question.  
"What should I say to her?" That was not a bad question. I mean how to tell a mother that her son died.  
You can´t say 'Hello. Son dead. Goodbye'. For that these sentence is just missing too much auxiliary verbs and pronouns.

Kitty thought about how she should start the conversation as Peg Puppy opened the door. Kitty looked confused at her  
"How did you know that…"  
"I saw you walking up to the house through the window. You´re Mitsy I think?"  
"My name is Kitty." She corrected Peg. "Can I come in?"

Peg stepped away from the door and let Kitty space to go through it.  
"Just go straight into the living room." Said Peg to her. Kitty walked through another door and stood in the living room  
with its two couches and pictures on the wall. She sat down on one of the couches and waited for Peg.

While she still tried to figure out how to start this conversation Peg flopped on the couch on the other side.  
"So, Kitty. Where is Dudley?" This was like a stab right into the heart for Kitty. She couldn´t fight the tears anymore.  
She took one of her hands to hide her eyes and began to cry.

"Oh, what´s wrong sweety?" asked Peg surprised from the sudden emotional outburst.  
"Is it about Dudley?" Kitty just nodded. "What happened?" Kitty pulled herself together as good as she could  
to say the next words with a clear voice. "Dudley had an accident."  
"What happened?!"

"He had a car accident last night… he´s…" Kitty couldn´t continue her throat was too constricted and  
the expression on Peg´s face didn´t made it better. Peg stood up, walked towards Kitty and sat down beside her.  
And then she hugged her. Kitty was surprised but not because of the hug, she was surprised because this felt so good.

"Let it out, sweety. You´ll feel better." Sobbed Peg and also in Kitty all dams broke.  
"I knew that something happened… I knew it this morning as I stood up." Meant Peg after a while.  
"Something felt so wrong… And I wondered what could have happened. And now…" She let her head sank on Kitty´s shoulder.

"First my husband… now Dudley. That just shouldn´t happen… Something was always against us."  
"What do you mean with that?"  
"Just a feeling sweety… "  
Together Kitty and Peg cried until their tears dried up.

**-Okay chapter 6 is up and I think a quarter of the story is done now. I will update Chapter 7 as soon as I can and because of this fantastic sleeping disorder I´m very productive ;D. And of course I´m curious how do you liked it so far. So write it in the reviews. By the way, Dudley is of course not dead ;)-**


	7. Chapter 7

0.0001 percent chance to survive. That was Dudley´s chance. But sometimes in life the most unlikely can happen.  
That was the reason why Dudley suddenly stood on a hill in the middle of nowhere. And he was very surprised by that.

He actually thought that he would see the living room of his Mom and the adviser talking about a mission or his potential again.  
Or was that another trick of this guy? He didn´t hope that. "Okay. First I have to find out where I am.  
The next step is to buy some flowers for Kitty. Maybe she won´t kill me then."

In his mind´s eye he saw Kitty beating him up really badly. Of course Kitty wasn´t somebody who beat everybody up  
but if you disappoint her… well, you better not disappoint her. Dudley looked around and saw the city far away in the distance.  
"There! But where is my car?"

The car was gone or parked somewhere else. He didn´t thought that he was on the same spot as before.  
After all he walked through a portal. Of course he wasn´t on the same spot! It is the sense of a portal to bring you from A to B.  
"Hm… I better start walking. I should be back home before dusk."

As Dudley wanted to take a step he stumbled and fell on the ground. "Ow… What was that?"  
He looked at his feet and saw the problem. The agent in the black suit lay on the ground motionless. "Oh, almost forgot you. Wake up."  
Dudley shook on that guy´s shoulder. He didn´t react.

"Hey come on! This isn´t funny!" with a dark suspicion Dudley kneed down to take his pulse. No pulse.  
He also felt that suit guy´s skin felt cold and Dudley saw now that he had a big laceration on his head.  
"Oh no…" His skull must have cracked.

Dudley searched the pockets of the guy to find something with that he could the body a name.  
He found his wallet in one of his jacket pockets. "Oh shit." As Dudley opened the wallet he saw a photo of the guy with a woman and  
a few children on it. He also found the driver´s license.

"Samuel Thomson" he read. Dudley stood up and tried to calm himself down from the thought 'I killed him!'  
"Stay cool. Okay. I have to get rid of the corpse first." He tried to remember training.

What had Simon said? "Puppy! Remember, it´s a complex art to get rid of a dead body. It´s all about the right place!  
You have to hide it somewhere where nobody would search for it. Or a spot that is so obvious that nobody would search there."

Dudley remembered what he replied to Simon. "That is a stupid piece of advice!" And he also remembered that Simon slapped him for that.  
"Okay, but still not helpful." Dudley searched the surrounding area for a good place. The hill was in the middle of a wheat field.

It was no good spot for hiding a corpse but around 600 meters away there was the river and in the river was a little island.  
"Hm… That could work." Dudley used all his strength to lift Samuel´s body on his shoulders.  
This time without the threat of a down falling ceiling it worked pretty good.

As he walked through the harvested field he realized that it was covered by a thin snow layer.  
That was strange because it was late summer on the day he walked into the portal. He asked himself if the city he saw was even Petropolis at all.  
Maybe the portal teleported him to a foreign city in a foreign land which has another season.

Dudley decided to deal with that later. The corpse was higher on his priority list right now.  
He reached the river and after he found a shallow area he passed it. The Island was small but nevertheless some trees stood on it.  
He eyed the island.

"Well it looks like a haunted island… everybody would expect a corpse here! But no one would search!"  
Dudley finally decided to bury Samuel beside on of the trees. He laid Samuel down and began to dig.

Others would need hours and a shovel to dig a hole that´s big and deep enough to bury a body but not Dudley.  
Primarily because he was a dog of course. But before he threw the corpse into the grave he looked down on himself.  
He was still dressed in his combat suit.

He couldn´t walk into the city in this, he would scare everyone to death.  
Dudley decided to swap his clothes for the black suit and tie which Samuel wore.  
It was disgusting for Dudley to do this but he had no other idea where he could get some normal looking clothes.  
"I´m so sorry." He spoke to the corpse. "But I really need this. Sorry."

Dudley laid the corpse carefully into the grave and looked at what he has done. "Samuel… I´m sorry.  
You were the right man in the wrong place at the wrong time. You fulfilled your job better than your coworkers and that cost your life."  
As Dudley threw the earth back on Samuel he decided to come back after some time and bury him on a real graveyard.

Or at least get him a funeral, somehow. He didn´t knew how but he promised it to him.  
Dudley trod down the earth on the grave, turned around and walked back to the hill.  
He searched the pockets of Samuel´s jacket if he could find anything useful besides his wallet.

As he reached the right inner breast pocket he made a find. It was a hip flask which was filled with vodka  
at least that was what Dudley thought as he took a sip. "Aww… Man…" From the hill he walked towards the city.  
As he came closer he saw the road sign with the name of the town on it. 'Petropolis' was written on it with big black letters.

"Weird…" Thought Dudley and moved on. It was confusing for him that it wasn´t summer even if it should  
because this city definitely was Petropolis. Or was there snow in the middle of the summer?  
As he came to the first houses he stopped and looked at them. He knew them because his Mom lived nearby.

But they looked different then yesterday. The color, the windows, the doors… everything seemed so new.  
"Weirder…" said Dudley to himself and continued walking. No one was on the street but that was not such a great surprise.  
This part of the city was a quiet one. His Mom once said to him that this was the reason why they were moved to this part of the city.

He reached a familiar newspaper kiosk which was closed with its blinds pulled down.  
It was the kiosk of Sarah Jenkins, he remembered that because she always gave the kids some candies for free.  
"Somebody here?" shouted Dudley. No one answered. He walked around the kiosk and looked if he finds someone.

But it was just a waste of time. "HELP!" somebody suddenly screamed and distracted him from his investigations.  
Dudley spun around and saw how two older dogs dragged a younger white dog into a little alley.  
Dudley didn´t hesitated to help and ran after them into the alley. The two dogs drove the younger into a corner.

"Give us your money, you stupid little mutt!" said one of this thugs.  
"But I don´t have any money!" the little dog cried.  
"That means you have to be punished." One of the two grabbed the little dogs arms while the other one pulled out a knife.  
"HELP" screamed the little dog.

"HEY! GET OF HIM!" shouted Dudley angry. He hated this people who fight against weaker and that also just in the majority.  
"What do you want, asshole?" one of them asked.  
"Pick a fight with someone who´s the same size as you!"

"You mean like you?" grinned one of the guys.  
"Bingo" said Dudley and attacked the thugs. He kicked the knife out of the hand of the first one.  
He rammed his fist in the stomach of the other one who broke down immediately. He grabbed the collar of the first and  
beat his head against the wall.

This guy didn´t defend himself much but he had a head like a rock. It took Dudley almost seven beats against the wall  
to make him unconsciousness. "It ended like it began. Fast…" He looked at the little terrified dog which was crouched  
in a corner of the alley.

"Hey little friend. The bad guys are away… okay not away but they can´t harm you anymore." The little dog looked at him with his big round eyes.  
"Are you a bad guy?"  
"No" laughed Dudley. "I´m a friend." It felt strange for Dudley as he suddenly realized that he used  
similar words as the advisor back then.

"Friend?" asked the little dog and began to wag his tail and look happy at him.  
"Yes, friend. Now, let´s get you home. By the way, what´s your name?"  
"My name is Dudley Puppy" said the little dog.

"What?!" thought Dudley. He was Dudley Puppy, not this little guy! This puppy must have made a mistake.  
Dudley was about to correct this error as he saw a newspaper lying on the ground.  
He took a closer look at it and read the date. '25 January 1998'

"That can´t be possible! Hey… uhm Dudley, what year is it?"  
"It´s 1998, why?"  
"Wow, that´s … the weirdest thing! That overcomes the thing with the snow!"


	8. Chapter 8

"1998… It can´t be 1998"  
"Why?" asked the little Dudley and looked at his older version with his big blue eyes.  
"Uhm…" What should Dudley say to little Dudley? 'I´m maybe you from the future. But I´m not sure. Let´s see'?  
That would have just confused the little guy too much. He was, after all, confused enough.

"What´s your name, Mr.?"  
"I´m… Jason." lied Dudley but this time more convincing.  
"Mr. Jason could you help me to get home?"

"Sure." Dudley and his alter ego started to walk.  
"Well, I have to admit… I´m kind of cute. If that´s really me…" Thought Dudley as he took a short gaze at the little him.  
They walked together a way that Dudley knew very well to a house that he also knew very well.

As they came to the door of the new looking house. Dudley knocked at the door. A fourteen year younger Peg Puppy opened  
the door and looked suspiciously at the foreigner. "Yes?"  
"Hello, my name is Jason… Swan. I found your son somewhere in an alley nearby."

"Oh my god, Dudley! Where have you been?" asked Peg the little Dudley sternly.  
"Mom, that man saved me!"  
"What do you mean?!"

Mini Dudley described his mother the whole incident in the alley. She looked stunned at Dudley, alias 'Jason Swan' and said.  
"Thank you, thank you, thank you. My boy would have died if you were not out there. How can I ever thank you?"

"I just did what everybody would have done." said Dudley modestly.  
"No, no, no! You´ve done more! Normally nobody would give a damn about a kid that got beaten up on the streets.  
You have to stay for dinner at least!" Before Dudley could answer he was dragged into the house´s kitchen.

He was sat on one of the chairs and was eyed by two pairs of eyes. One of them belonged to someone  
who looked like Dudley´s older brother, Stan. And the other pair… belonged to his father.  
Dudley didn´t believed his own eyes as he saw him. All doubts of him that he might be not in the past were wiped away by seeing him.

"Peg, who is this?!" asked Dudley´s father, Frank.  
"That´s Jason Swan. He saved Dudley from some guys who wanted to hurt him."  
"Is that true?" Frank seemed skeptical so Dudley answered immediately with "Yes!"

"Okay! Thanks!" Frank now focused on his plate and tried to pierce a pea which didn´t seem to accept its fate as food with his fork.  
Peg handed Dudley a plate and sat down beside him. Two feelings existed in Dudley.  
One was the unbelievable feeling of happiness to see his father, a man that died when he was ten while he was on patrol.

The other was a feeling of total confusion. "What the heck is going on here?!" he thought.  
But both feelings couldn´t stop him from eating. He was so hungry after all of this and it would also look very strange  
if he just stared at the family.  
"So… Jason, tell us something about you." Peg tried to break the silence on the table.

"Well, I´m a T.U.F.F. agent and…" Dudley regretted these words. "Damn, this is wrong! I have to lie about me.  
If I tell them to much they will expose me and then… well… again this thing with 'I´m your son from the future'  
and nobody would believe that!" Dudley thought shortly about a lie and continued his sentence. "… I´m here on a vacation."

"A T.U.F.F. agent! That´s impressive. Not everybody can make it through the training."  
Exclaimed Frank without looking up from his plate.  
"Yes, it´s pretty cool."

"And how long are you doing this?"  
"Just a few years. But as a said it´s a great fun."  
"And, in which hotel are you staying while your visit?" said Peg and continued the crossfire of questions.  
"I don´t have place to stay yet…"

"Then I have to insist that you stay here until you´ve found a hotel. And I don´t accept a no as an answer."  
Meant Peg while Frank looked at her angry. He seemed not to be happy with the fact that a stranger would stay the night in his house.  
Dudley had no chance to deny this offer because after all she said that she wouldn´t accept a no.

"Well, thank you…" said Dudley. After that the table talk focused on another subject.  
"Stan, tell us about school." Ordered Frank his oldest son.  
"Well, we learned today about the inner structure of a cell and how we can solve complex equations and how a nuclear b…"

Dudley was first surprised why somebody learns these things at school but then he remembered that Stan  
was in a special class for gifted pupils. This made his later comedown in the world of crime and  
drugs even more surprising and tragic for the whole family.

Stan continued speaking about what he learned at school and Dudley listened to him.  
He knew that it was weird but he kind of enjoyed it to see his whole family eating on the table, to see them eating and laughing.  
As the plates were all cleared up the family stood up from the table.

Frank mumbled something like "I´m going to work on my project" and walked away. Peg began to clean the dishes  
and Stan went away without saying anything. Little Dudley tugged at his older egos sleeve.  
"Jason, do you want to play with me?" asked the little one.  
"Sure, what do you want to play."

"Can you help me playing my ball-in-the-cup-game?" Dudley had to smile. The old ball-in-the-cup-game.  
He loved it and still loves it. The little Dudley dragged his future I in the living room and picked up the little cup from the ground.

Then he tried to place the ball in the cup… and failed. He tried it again … and failed again.  
The small guy looked disappointed at the cup. "It never works!" Big Dudley got down on one of his knees.  
"I also have one of these, and the trick is to concentrate on the ball. You have to be the ball. Understood?"

The kid just looked confused at him and said "No…"  
"Well, close your eyes and try to feel what the ball feels, try to think what he thinks. Be the ball!"  
Little Dudley did what he was told and tried it again… and failed.

"Come on Dudley, try it again." The old Dudley said. So he tried again… and failed.  
"I thought this time it would work… Anyway, if you practice this it will work someday."  
"Cool!" shined little Dudley and ran away. Dudley stood up amused and turned around. He saw Stan grinning mockingly at Dudley.

"That was the biggest shit I´ve ever heard, man." Stan added to his grin.  
"Well, at least the little Dudley had fun."  
"Yeah, that´s right. Hey, I have to thank you for saving him. Even if he´s very very annoying, but… I kind of like him."  
He began to laugh. "Thank you Mr. Swan."

"You´re welcome and call me Jason." Said Dudley.  
"Okay, Jason. By the way, my Mom wanted to talk to you. You better not let her wait."  
Stan smiled a last time and left the room. Dudley didn´t want to let Peg wait so he walked back into the kitchen.

Peg stood there and washed the dishes. She looked at him as he came in and said.  
"Ah, Mr. Swan. Would you be so kindly and help me here?"  
"Of course." Dudley grabbed a dishtowel which was lying around and began to help his mother.

"So Mr. Swan…"  
"Please, call me Jason." Interrupted Dudley.  
"Okay, Jason. Where are you from?"  
"I´m from… Petsburg."

"And you´re making holidays here? Petsburg isn´t so far away. Usually people travel to places that are far away.  
Like hawaii…" Peg´s look wandered to the ceiling and she was lying in her thoughts on a beach in a coconut bikini.

"Yeah but I recently rented an apartment and I don´t have much money now." Dudley mixed up the reality with his lie.  
Normally that´s very dangerous but he had no time to work out a more complex lie. "And do you have a wife or kids?"  
Peg really got to the point fast, but that was how she was.

"No, I´m single"  
"What? Such an attractive young man like you is single? That´s impossible!"  
Peg moved a little closer to Dudley and smiled widely.

"Wow… wait." Thought Dudley "Is my Mom trying to flirt with me? Or even seduce me?! Eww…"  
He felt really disgusted by this thought. "Uhm…Mrs. Puppy… I´m pretty tired. So could you show me where I can sleep?"

He tried to avoid a resumption of this subject. "Of course, just follow me."  
Peg led Dudley upstairs to a little room which was except of a bed empty.  
"If you need anything, just call me." Peg winked at Dudley and left the room.  
"Wow… This day can´t get weirder." Dudley said to himself "That´s sure!"


	9. Chapter 9

"Is this already working? I wish these instructions would be more… Oh, I think it´s working now.  
Hello, this is Dudley. You must have missed me or I´m just not in the mood to pick up the phone,  
so leave a massage after the tone… Hey that rhy… *beep*" Kitty hung up the phone and pushed the redial button.

"Is this already…" she listened to this recording the third time now and every time it felt so good to her Dudley´s voice.  
For a short moment it was like he never died. This recording was the only thing that helped her getting through this time…  
but it also kept her away from concern herself with Dudley´s dead.

It was just too painful for her even if she knew that would be the best to do this. To concern herself with the inexplicable  
inner emptiness that spread in her. Kitty listened to the recording one last time then she put her cellphone away.

She wasn´t at home because she had to do something for Dudley´s mother.  
Peg wanted her to go into Dudley´s apartment and search there for a photo album in Dudley´s belongings.  
That was the reason she stood in front of Dudley´s apartment door. "There must be some very unique family photos in it."

Kitty opened the door and entered the apartment. She looked surprised around. The apartment was tastefully furnished and  
very neat at least by Dudley´s standards. A thin layer of dust had gathered over the furniture,  
but that´s not unusual when nobody lives in the apartment for a few days.

"It´s nice here… Dudley have you hired someone who decorate this place?"  
She walked directly into the bed room where she hoped to find the album. She didn´t want to stay here longer than necessary.  
It was kind of creepy to be in Dudley´s apartment.

She began to search through his closet. As she rummaged in the drawers through Dudley´s underwear she thought.  
"I would have never imagined that I someday root through Dudley´s underwear."  
She imagined what Dudley´s face would be like if he just come into the room and caught her by doing this.  
That made her laugh which turned into a frown.

"I don´t think I´ll find something here." She sighed, walked to the bedside table and opened the drawer.  
"There it is!" she pulled out the photo album and was about to leave as she noticed something else in the drawer.  
It was another book. "Never knew that Dudley read…" she picked up the book. It had no title, it was just a little black book.

As opened it and began to read she noticed surprised that this seems to be a Diary. It made her laugh again.  
"Dudley, it seems like you were a thirteen year old girl." Kitty first was unsure if she should read the diary but Dudley was dead,  
he wouldn´t have any objections.

"Well let´s see… '_First thing I want to say is that I´m not a thirteen year old girl_' " read Kitty out loud.  
" '_… but after the recent events I somehow have the need to write down everything.  
First this dream, then this advisor thing and of course Jeffrey itself…'_ Advisor?"

Kitty turned some pages over and continued reading. " _'I woke up in the Jungle today!  
Simon and the adviser stood in front of me, handed me a knife and said 'survival training'.  
Then they disappeared. Great…But I have to admit. If I hadn´t messed up the thing in the casino I wouldn´t be here!_

_I tried seven days to find any civilization to get out of the jungle. And of course the only civilization_  
_I found was some kind of native tribe that tried to eat me! I could escape but it wasn´t a great fun._  
_But finally on the eighth day I found someone who also saved me… Training gets better every day!'  
_On what kind of trip you were, Dudley?!"

Kitty turned some pages over again. "_'I can´t see this damn guy anymore! Today he gave me my first mission.  
He had this great idea that I should break into the national bank to destroy some kind of evidences  
AND OF COURSE HE DE DIDN´T DO ANYTHING TO HELP ME!'_ ...What?!"

Kitty had no idea what this 'diary' was about. Maybe some kind of little short stories written by Dudley?  
She was unsure but she took the book with her. "I´ll will read through this tonight."  
It was nothing more to do in her so she walked out of the apartment building and get into the new bought T.U.F.F. mobile.  
She turned on her communicator and heard the chief´s voice through the speakers.

"Agent Katswell, are you there? Over."  
"Yes, what´s wrong chief? Over." Answered Kitty.  
"We got a new case for you. Bomb explosion in the main street.  
The police answered for our help. You´ll take care of this. Over"

"Roger chief. I´m on my way. Over" she switched the communicator off and drove to the main street.  
The explosion spot was visible from the distance. The place was a mess.  
Debris was spread over the street and the house that looked like a part of it was torn out and of course it still smoked.

Kitty parked the car, got out of it and walked determined towards a bunny with white and brown markings in a police uniform.  
"Hey Brian, what do we got her?" The Bunny turned around and greeted Kitty happily.  
"Hello agent Ketswell." He looked around like he was searching for someone or something.  
"Where is agent Puppy? Where is this crazy dog?" he laughed.

Kitty looked sad to the ground "He died in a car accident five days ago…"  
"Oh! Oh my! My heartfelt sympathy!" stammered Brain "I.. I mean…"  
"It´s okay Brian. Let´s talk about the case."  
"Oh okay. Well, it seems that our old friend the Petropolis Bomber struck again."  
"And you think that because…?"

"Because it´s his typical procedure. No one saw something or heard something."  
"Are there any victims?" asked Kitty while she let her eye wander over the rubble.  
"Yes, we have two dozen dead bankers… damn, luckily I´m not the one who has to tell their families about their dead."

"Do you think you should you use the words dead bankers and luck in one sentence?"  
Brain didn´t respond, he just look down like a little guilty boy.  
"You mind if I look around here?" asked Kitty him.  
"Feel free to do what you want." Brain left her alone and walked to a group of police officers.

Kitty got to work. With her trained eye she searched the crime scene for evidence. "What we have here?"  
She put on her gloves and picked some little iron pieces from the ground.  
"What´s that? I´ll better take this to Keswick." She kept on looking around and walked deeper into the destroyed building.  
As she came to the place where the bomb was planted she looked around.

It must have been a storeroom but now there was just one wall standing and the ceiling was gone.  
On the last standing wall see could recognize some kind of pipes which now lead into nothing.  
"Pipes… for water or gas? Maybe I´m able to find out when I´m back at the HQ… I think I won´t find anything more here."

She turned around and walked out of the ruin to Brain. "I´m done here."  
"And? Found something?"  
"I don´t know if it´s something. But Keswick will find out."  
"Okay, see you soon Kitty." Kitty walked back to the car and thought about Brains last words. "What he meant by 'see you soon'?"

They didn´t make sense unless he expected more attacks. That would be not unusual because if it´s really the 'Petropolis bomber'  
that won´t be the last attack.  
She not stopped thinking about that until she stood in Keswick´s lab.

"Wow… that was fast!" Kitty stepped into the lab and saw a small figure sitting in the corner.  
"What… done" whispered it.  
"Hey Keswick, is that…" Kitty got a shock as the figure turned around and came closer.

It was Keswick but he didn´t looked good. He had eye circles which almost hang to his knee and  
looked pale like he was haunted by some kind of ghost. Also his coat looked greyer than white and his glasses were cracked.

"Agent Katswell, what can I d..d..DO FOR YOU!" he suddenly started to shout.  
"Whoa, Keswick what´s wrong?"  
"NOTHING! I´m just not in c..c..CONTROL OF my voice right now. That´s NOT so b..b..BAD!"  
he began to gesture with his hands so excessively that Kitty had a chance to take a closer look on his hands.

"Why you have blood on your hands?"  
"I have n..n..NOBODYS blood on my hands! From WHERE do you got this?! Don´t b..b..BELIEVE it, it´s a l..l..LIE!"  
Keswick seemed really nervous about something.  
"I meant this blood." She pointed with her finger at Keswicks left hand.

"Oh, that… I broke a t..t..test tube AND cut myself. NOTHING more!"  
"Okaaaay… Well I have these iron pieces from the crime scene. Could you examine them?"  
"No, p..p..PROBLEM KITTY!" he screamed. Kitty handed him the little plastic bag and looked pensively at him.

"You´re really okay?"  
"I´m f..f..fine KITTY." He shouted and walked to his lab devices.  
"Something is definitely foul. That´s sure." Said Kitty to herself and left the lab.


	10. Chapter 10

Dudley lay awake in his bed and stared at the ceiling. He has been stranded in the past for five days now  
and to make things even worse he was still wearing a dead man´s suit.  
Also he was afraid that they would kick him out of their house very soon.

Not because he behaved wrong, no he always helped when he was asked for and brought his best manners to light.  
It was Frank which made Dudley worry. He got angrier every day Dudley stayed in his house.  
And then this permanent flirt attempts of his mother which really freaked him out.

But he finally understood why his mother always tried that. She just needed attention by anybody.  
Her husband was in the cellar every night and worked on his 'project'. That was another thing, this project.  
Dudley had no idea what Frank did down there. He asked the whole family about that.

Stan said that he had no idea, little Dudley said that he would built a boat down there but that was of course nonsense  
and Peg said that she just knew that he always took the newspaper with him down there but never bring it back upstairs.

Dudley couldn´t stop thinking about that so he made a decision. "I´ll go and check it out."  
He stood up from his bed and got his clothes on. "Okay quiet now" Dudley opened the door of his room  
as silent as he could and sneaked through it towards the stairs. He tiptoed down the stairs to the locked cellar door.  
He fished a paper clip from his pocket and began to break the look.

In moments like this he wished he had claws like Kitty which would make this much easier.  
Then he thought about her and what she would do right now. He really missed her even they were separated for just a few days.  
But Dudley began to realize that there was almost no way to get back to his time.

"I have to contact the Advisor but maybe this Möbius guy…" The lock finally gave in and he opened the door.  
Dudley stepped into the room and turned on the light. "WOW" said Dudley loud. In the room were all walls covered  
with hundreds of cut out newspaper articles.

Dudley walked closer to the wall and eyed the articles. All of them were about the Petropolis-bomber.  
It seems that Frank was really obsessed of this guy. "Well, at least I know now what…"  
"Freeze!" a voice from behind him shouted. Dudley turned around and saw Frank pointing his gun at him.  
"What are you doing here?"  
"I just…"  
"Spying on me?"

"No, I just came in her… uhm…" Dudley tried to think about anything he could tell Frank which wouldn´t blow his cover.  
"I´m here to…" but he had no idea.  
"I know exactly what you do here! Petropolis-Bomber!"  
"What?! NO!"  
"You don´t have to deny it, I know who you are! I have an old friend working at T.U.F.F..

He said there is no agent called Jason Swan! And now I understood why you here!"  
"Oh is that so? Tell me!" Dudley didn´t want to sound aggressive but this accusation was just too stupid.  
"You want to destroy all my files I collected about the attacks and about you! And you want to steal  
my wife to make your triumph even greater!"  
"Oh man, that´s gross!" Dudley exclaimed accidently.

Frank´s reaction was that he pressed his gun on Dudley´s forehead.  
"Why? I can see that you like my wife! I can see how you flirt with her!"  
"Hey wait, she´s flirting with me! NOT the other way around!" Frank cocked his gun and smiled at Dudley.

"Any last words before I you…" Dudley already closed his eyes ready for the worst and waited.  
But nothing happened! He opened his eyes and saw Frank staring at the ground. Then he picked up something.  
It was Dudley´s T.U.F.F. badge which maybe fell out of his pocket.

He always carried it around even if he was on an Advisor-mission. The badge often helped him to, let´s say, open some doors.  
Frank eyed the badge. Then he holstered his gun, stepped closer to Dudley and grabbed him by his collar.

"IS THAT SOME KIND OF JOKE?! ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME?!"  
"What do you mean?" asked Dudley intimidated.  
"WHY IS THE NAME OF MY SON ON THIS BADGE?!"  
"Shit…" mumbled Dudley.

His cover was blown and he knew that there was no more chance to lie so he decided to tell his father the plain truth.  
"Look. I´m your son." Frank backed away from him and looked unbelieving. Then he began to laugh.  
"I almost believed it!" he pulled his gun out again.

"Wait! I had an accident and was thrown in the past somehow.  
Yeah that´s right, I come from the future! In this future I´m a T.U.F.F. agent and you are…"  
Dudley stopped. Should he tell his father that he´s dead? Even he decided to tell the truth that was nothing you should tell someone.

"I am WHAT?"  
"You are… okay."  
Frank raised one of his eyebrows what meant that he didn´t believe him.  
Neither this whole time travel story –what wasn´t surprising for Dudley because he also wouldn´t believe that-  
nor the lie about what happened to him in the future. But Frank seemed at least willing to try to believe.

"Okay, hold on for a second! Can you even proof your story?" Dudley looked down at his body and searched something  
"Let´s see… I have my badge and… this bubble gum, want some…?" Frank shook his head.  
"Okay… ah, look at this." Dudley pulled out his gun and handed it. Frank looked at it.

"It looks like my gun." He pulled out his own gun and held the two beside each other. "That is my gun, or a very good copy."  
"It is your gun! And mine too!"

"Okay, let´s pretend you're from the future. You could also be somebody who stole the gun of my son!"  
That was a good objection. Everyone could come and tell him this completely crazy sounding story.  
Dudley needed a final evidence to persuade him. "Well we´re looking pretty similar, aren´t we?"

"That could also be a coincidence."  
"Well…" Dudley scratched himself pensively under the chin. "I have an idea! Do you ever heard of the paternity test?" asked Dudley.

"Yes, it´s this new procedure! So you think if this test shows that you´re my son, your story is proofed?"  
"Right."  
"Hm… Okay, I´m willing to do this but if you trying to deceive me…"

Frank made a threatening gesture so that Dudley would understand.  
He ripped out a hair from Dudley´s head and put it in a little plastic bag which he always carried around.  
Well, Frank was a good cop. "And keep your cover! Don´t run around out there and tell everyone who you are!"

"Thanks Dad" Dudley smiled but Frank responded angry. "Hey! Your story is still not true for me!  
Now get out of this room and back into your bed!" Dudley said nothing more and walked back into his room and got back into his bed.

He awoke the next morning and stumbled, tired from his night-time trip, into the kitchen.  
The house was empty at this time usually because Frank was on patrol and Peg brought the kids into school.  
Dudley sat down on one of the kitchen chairs.

He leaned back and laid his feet on the table and laid his hands on his face.  
"Oh, damn… Why does this happen always happen to me?"  
"Well, I already explained that to you."

"Who was that?" Dudley moved startled what caused the chair to fell over with him on it.  
He got back on his feet immediately.  
"Oh, come on! You really forgot my voice?"  
"Advisor?!"

"Bingo" I said. "So Dudley, how do you like the past? Is it how you would have imagined it?"  
"NO! I HATE IT! LIKE THE LAST TIME I TRAVELLED!  
AND SINCE WHEN YOU`RE ABLE TO SPEAK WITH ME WITHOUT BEING HERE?!" screamed Dudley out.

"I can do many things. By the way, Keswick´s watch did not let you travel through time it just brought you to a parallel Universe.  
If worst comes to worst you can still go there. You are a hero for them.  
But back to the main subject, why do you don´t like in the past?!" I saw how Dudley tried to calm down  
because he thought that I´m his only ticket back.

"Because I have the bad feeling that I´ll go through on of the worst moments of my life again!  
Why don´t we skip this character transforming shit and you take me back?" Sometimes I wondered  
if he even thought about the things he says.

"Well, why do we not also skip this other character building shit called life and I will show you the death?"  
Dudley was kind of surprised of my aggressive answer.  
"Okay" he sighed "So, how can I come back?"

"Dudley, find out for yourself!" I also sighed and fell silent.  
"COME ON, YOU´RE KIDDING?! YOU DON´T HELP ME BECAUSE YOU´RE ANGRY?!  
YOU KNOW WHAT? F*CK YOU!" he shouted in the room.

I made him so angry that he decided after some minutes of staring at the wall to go out for walk to calm down.  
"Damn idiot with his damn powers!" he spoke to himself as he walked over on the sideway.  
The street was almost empty, just a few people who did their work there.

Dudley continued cursing and as he saw a stone lying on the ground. He kicked it as hard as he could.  
And he felt good as it flew far away.  
"OW!" Dudley heard from the same direction where he kicked the stone.

"Oh great…" He thought and ran towards the voice. And as he reached it he was flabbergasted as he saw who lay there on the ground.  
"Kitty?!" he asked the young cat girl that held her head. He helped her back on her feet and took a look at her wound.

"Okay, that don´t look like a serious injury but…"  
"Why have you done this?!" she interrupted him.  
"I´m sorry, it was an accident! Sorry Kitty!"

"First, watch out when you kick a stone the next time and second, my name isn´t Kitty! I´m Kerry! Kitty is my little sister!"  
said Kerry and touched her wound. "Ow… Hey stone kicker, you´ll bring me home!"  
Dudley didn´t struggle against that because it would be the least he could do.

She leaned on him and they walked down the street.  
"By the way, what´s your name stone kicker?" Kerry sounded weirdly happy even if she was just recently got hurt.  
"I´m Jason Swan."  
"A dog called Swan, huh? I´m Kerry Katswell." Dudley had to laugh

"Yeah, that suits better."  
Kerry led Dudley towards a small ran-down house.  
"You live here?!" asked Dudley surprised. Kerry didn´t respond and seemed  
to get nervous every step they came closer to the door. He rang the door-bell and a scruffy elder tomcat opened it.

"Yeah?" he grunted at Dudley so that he could smell the smell of booze coming from him.  
Before Dudley could say anything Kerry began to speak. "Hey Dad, I had an accident and this genius was involved in it."  
Kerry´s dad just answered by making an indefinable sound that probably meant that he didn´t cares.

"Hey Daddy, I drew you!" a little cat girl appeared and tried to show her Daddy a picture.  
"Shut up you little…" The guy raised his hand threatening against his little daughter. But he stopped before he beat her.

"He doesn't beat us when somebody is watching." Whispered Kerry while her dad was looking at her sister.  
She walked into the house and before she closed the door she said to Dudley so that her Dad couldn´t hear her. "Help us."

Dudley stared confused at the door. Should he ran into the house and beat up this drunken bastard?  
"I have to be careful with the things I change here." He thought. He almost forgot that he was in the past.

**-Well, chapter ten is done and I was also able to sleep a bit ... 16 hours... Thanks for all the reviews. And special thanks to Noob, I´m sorry that I´m stealing your sleep but I somehow hope that I´m also able to do this in further chapters ;D-**


	11. Chapter 11

Keswick sat on the ground in his corner and tended the deep cut on his left hand.  
He has just put the little iron pieces Kitty found into the mass spectrometer and now he could just wait for the results.  
He was almost unable to work for the last five days.  
His hands were always shaking, his glasses always fell down and he began to hurt himself.

Oh curse he didn´t hurt himself on purpose.  
He for example he forgot to wear a respiratory mask when he works with poison chemicals or  
cut himself on piece of broken glass or other sharp objects more often.  
He began to think that something in him wanted to punish him for what he did to Dudley.

Kitty was right with what she said before even if she didn´t mean it like that. He had blood on his hands.  
And there were also this dreams which took the sleep away from him. He saw Dudley in them just standing in front of him in silent.  
When Keswick tried to ask him something he didn´t say anything.

Dudley remained silent for the whole dream but always before he woke up he asks "Why?"  
Keswick haven´t slept for the last two days because he couldn´t stand Dudley´s look.  
"What have I d..d..done?" he asked himself.

"You know it. Why are you asking?"  
"Who said that?!" Keswick spun around and saw Dudley standing there.  
"That´s i..i..impossible! You´re d..d..dead!" he stammered at him. He walked towards Dudley and tried to touch him  
but his hands glided through him.

"You´re not the r..r..real Dudley, aren´t you?"  
"Of course not! The real Dudley is dead! I´m just a part of your imagination!  
I´m a projection of the memories you have of the real Dudley." said the fake Dudley.

"And w..w..what do you want from me?! Do you want to h..h..haunt me?!"  
"No, I want to help you. You can´t blame yourself for my dead!"  
"Why n..n..not?! This was my fault! I have sent you to this risky mission without any h..h..help."  
Keswick corrected him.

"Because I would have wanted you to go on with your life. And as I see that you will be destroyed if you not stop blaming yourself!  
I´m gone and you know that you can´t find absolution through me, only through yourself!" meant the hallucination and disappeared.

Keswick stood there and wondered what just happened. Was that really a hallucination of Dudley made from his memories of him,  
what would somehow show how the real Dudley would react, or was it just some kind of protective mechanism  
of his psyche to make him not slowly killing himself.

"What can I d..d..do? I…" Keswick was torn out of his thoughts by the beeping sound of the mass spectrometer.  
He walked to the device and looked at the screen which is attached to it. The results were just flashed up on the screen.

"Interesting…" on this little pieces seemed to stick some rest of the explosives the culprit has used. "  
Execellent. Finally a c..c..clue" Keswick´s joy about the results wasn´t groundless because it was the really rare  
to find evidence in the case of the Petropolis-Bomber. And all other evidences either disappeared or were not even found!  
"I have to i..i..inform the chief" said Keswick and ran out of the lab.

Meanwhile sat Kitty on her couch with a cup of coffee and Dudley´s diary. She just came back from work and was curious  
about what she will find in that book. She didn´t hesitated and opened it on one of the first pages after Dudley´s little 'preface'.  
"Okay… here." Kitty cleared her throat and began to read.

" _'Jeffrey Sullivan is dead and this fact just make me happier every day. I saved the city even if the city didn´t thank me.  
But the picture how Sullivan´s head exploded was thanks enough.'_ Whoa, Dudley!"

Kitty was surprised how brutal and cold Dudley seemed but she continued reading.  
" _'But the funniest thing was Kitty´s face as she saw me killing him. She looked at me like 'Oh my god what have you done!'  
but if she has went through what I went through she would applauded!'_ What are you talking about?! Went through what?" she asked herself.

" _'Oh Kitty. It´s kind of sad you don´t remember what never happened also what never happened between us!'_"  
Kitty turned over some pages because this passage gave her more questions than answers.

"Okay, here. _'Day 15. Well that´s a training I like! The Advisor handed me 500,000 Dollar, sent me to a casino  
and said that I have to double the money or I will have to go to survival training next morning… nothing easier than that!'_"  
Kitty turned over the pages again. This wasn´t really interesting for her because she knew how the casino thing would end.

" _'Day 25. Becky is kind of cute. And it´s a shame that I have to do this! Under other circumstances  
I would have asked her out in a usual way but… Damn I got work to do! And to break into the national bank is no picnic!  
And I need that goddamn keycard… I don´t want imagine what could happen if I fail… But is that really the right way?'_ Who is Becky?"  
Kitty turned another page around.

" _'Day 27. The first and the second date went fine. I really like her and she seems to like me.  
That makes the whole thing just harder for me! I must not fall in love with her, I have to focus on the mission.  
Anyway, when I do the right things after the next date I can get the keycard.'_"

Kitty looked pensively up from the book. Dudley dated somebody… and hadn´t told her? He always told her anything.  
And then he almost loved this girl? Somehow that hurt Kitty really bad but she couldn´t find a reason for that.  
She was unsure if she should read on because she thought that anything what she would found there would just hurt her more.

But her curiosity prevailed. " _'Day 28. The date was a complete success! Nevertheless I feel terrible.  
We were in this restaurant and I drove her home and we kissed each other at the door and went in her bedroom to continue this._

It was good… but what I done after that… After she slept away in my arms I stole her keycard and left her! And that´s why I feel so terrible.  
She will never see Dudley Puppy aka Jason Swan again… maybe that´s better. The next step is now to break into the national bank.  
I hope that will work. But I still hate me for doing what the advisor forcing me.'

Dudley, what have you done?!"

Kitty looked unbelieving at the lines she just read. She always thought Dudley was a good guy.  
She thought he would never hurt somebody deliberately. And then this! He broke this Becky´s heart and left her what was horrible!  
"You done this to get into the bank. You better got a good reason to get in this bank!

_'Day 29. That was… easy. Really easy. I was dressed as a security agent and just walked through the bank… like I owned this damn place!  
I walked to the safe, used the keycard and planted my bomb at the right safe deposit box and left the building before the counter fell to zero.  
This should be over now, except somebody realized that I sniffed around a bit in Mr. Edwards private documents._  
_Hope that´ll won´t happen…'_

I still can´t see a reason, Dudley. Let´s see. _'Day 30. Okay. Now this thing is over.  
But Keswick saw me chasing those two thugs away._

To make him not talking I had to promise him that I would do something for him. I hope that he won´t call in that favor soon.'

What has Keswick to do with that?!" she turned the page again to the last written site.

Dudley´s handwriting which was usually only decipherable with a trained eye was even worse on that page.  
He maybe had written that as he was in a hurry. " _'Day 31. Oh great he called the favor. But it´s just a smaller mission.  
I´ll be back before the date with Kitty begins. At least I hope this. I mean I really looking forward to the date!_' Which mission?!  
And what has this to do with Keswick?"

She closed the book and laid it besides her on the couch. Kitty was unable to make sense of this all.  
But the diary changed the way she thought about Dudley. She now… had no idea what to think about him.  
The book showed that he done the opposite things she expected him to do.

She put her head back and called to the ceiling. "Dudley, what happened to you?"  
Kitty stood up from the couch and the looked down at herself. "Do I really expect an answer?"  
She looked for the book which was fallen down from the couch as she stood up.  
The last page of it was opened and something was written on it.  
"What´s that?" The text wasn´t made by Dudley because it wasn´t his handwriting.

" _'Even if the days are dark and it seems that the light of the sun is getting weaker.  
Even if it everything seems meaningless to you and the dead already reached out his boney finger for you. You have to keep hoping.  
Not only for yourself also for them. Because you are their hope even if they can not see it. They need you more than they would admit.  
Keep your head up. Your friend the advisor._' Who´s that guy?"

She remembered that Dudley mentioned the name in somewhere in the Diary.  
"There must be some kind of key in here to decode this." Kitty thought that there maybe was  
some kind of hidden message in the book. She walked into the kitchen and took out a knife to cut the book cover open.

Because she trained Dudley she knew that she taught him once that this was a pretty good spot to hide something so it was just logic to her.  
And she was right. A photo fell out of the cover. She picked it up and saw herself in the picture.  
It was a piece of the old photo which also stood on her desk in the office. Usually it showed her and Dudley while they were arresting Snaptrap.

But this was ripped apart so that it was only her in it. Kitty looked at the backside of the photo and saw a little text written on it.  
"As long as you close to me…" Tears flooded her eyes. "Dudley…"


	12. Chapter 12

"The results are here." Frank laid the test report and his gun on the table.  
"Just in case…" he said ginning meanly to Dudley. Dudley sat on the kitchen chair on the other side of the table  
and wanted to grab the report but Frank pulled it away from him. "Do you really think that I´ll let you read this first? No."  
Frank opened the file and began to read.

His eyes wandered over the papers then he threw the file on the table and starred shocked at Dudley.  
"Is there something in my face?!" asked Dudley nervous and touched over his face.  
"No, I just can´t believe that my son is upstairs playing in his room… and also sitting her at the table."  
"So you finally believe me?"

"How couldn´t I?" said Frank still staring unbelieving. "The test is said clear that you are my son… Now tell me how did you come here?"  
"Well…" Dudley told him the whole story starting with him and Keswick in the café over  
the dinner with Kitty and her parents till the moment when the shit was hitting the fan.

"So, in the future you are a T.U.F.F. agent and also some kind of world savior?" summarized Frank wondering.  
"Yes."  
"Usually I would just laugh about you and call you an idiot but, with that time travel stuff, I´d almost believe you everything."

"Thanks Dad" smiled Dudley.  
"No problem kiddo. But now we have to search for a way to get you back to your time. And of course I already have an idea?"  
"Really? Tell me!" Hope began to grow in Dudley. He has been here for ten days now and every day he lost a bit more hope to come back to the future.

"Well, I have a friend at T.U.F.F. and he said that we could meet with their scientist there. He maybe could help us."  
"That´s at least a plan. And when is this meeting?"  
"This evening. But before you go there…"

"You won´t come with me?" interrupted him Dudley.  
"No I have to work on my 'project'." Frank seemed to slide into his thoughts as he said this.  
"Hey, stay here!" Dudley flicked his fingers in front of his father´s face.  
"Stop it!" Frank replied angry.

"By the way, what is that down there? I only seen similar things in the bedrooms of stalkers or serial killers!"  
Frank sighed and sat down at the chair next to him. "I try to catch the Petropolis bomber. He began a year ago with the first attacks...  
And I just can´t get him. He acts up with the police! And they´re just too incompetent to get him. That´s why I investigate on my own in my spare time."

Dudley didn´t like that. Even if Frank wasn´t the worst person to do this, mainly because as a police officer he had access to the police database,  
Dudley saw that he neglected his family almost completely. But there was one thing Dudley didn´t understood. "Why are you doing this?"

"I´m doing this for everyone. For my kids, my family. So I´m doing this also for you. I want you and your brother growing up  
in a city which is not exploding around them. That´s why I´m doing this."  
"Wow… that makes me feel really bad." Meant Dudley.  
"Why? As I understood you also try to safe us."

"That´s right but I don´t do this for anyone. I just do this because this advisor forces me.  
When I think about it… It seems like I have nothing to fight for. What makes me wonder why I´m still fighting."  
"See, I think you would have given up if there was really nothing to fight for." Said Frank comforting him.

"I often had the chance. But my only choice is death and that´s not very tempting. But after the shit I had to do the last weeks… well."  
Frank didn´t replied he just looked at his son with a sad expression on his face. He had to somehow cheer him up  
before Dudley would surrender to these dark thoughts.

"Hey Dudley, we still have some time. How about going downstairs with me and we look over all I collected. Maybe you find something I have missed."  
Dudley had nothing to do anyway so he followed his Dad into the little room. A small light bulb which hung from the ceiling spread weak light.  
Frank walked to a file cabinet and pulled out just one a small file.

"That´s all !?" It was surprising because Dudley thought that there would be more. Frank collected stuff for almost a year and  
the really important things fit in this small file? "Yep, that´s all." He laid the file carefully on a white plastic folding table and  
sat down on a white plastic folding chair.

"Sit down" said Frank and pointed at a dusty wooden box in the corner of the room. "I prefer to stand. This box doesn't look comfortable."  
Dudley laid his hands on the table and opened the file. It was even emptier than it looked like.  
Five pages and three crime scene photos, that was all.

"I still don´t have the pictures of the latest attacks." Meant Frank as Dudley looked over the photos.  
On each of these photos Dudley saw the same thing which was just a big mass of debris.  
"This photos aren´t really helpful. What are these? Reports?"  
"Yeah, but they´re as helpful as the photos." Frank confirmed.

Dudley began to read through the documents. There was nothing unusual except of one thing. "What? FBI?"  
"Yes." Said Frank. "Always when we collected some evidence against this guy the FBI came and took it away."

"Maybe the FBI has a more information then. You ever tried to ask them for that information?"  
"I already tried this but they never answered my request."  
"Maybe I can handle this… and maybe your friend at T.U.F.F. will help me." Dudley suggested.

"Sounds like a plan. Okay. You better hurry to get to T.U.F.F. and I´m going to stay down…"  
"No!" interrupted him Dudley with an angry tone in his voice. "You´ll go upstairs and spend some time with your family and your wife.  
They need you! And don´t dare to talk back!"

"But…"  
"NO! GO!" he ordered sternly and his father obeyed. Dudley collected all the papers and put the file back into the file cabinet.  
Then he walked up the stairs and checked if his Dad was really doing what he wanted him to do. And yes, Frank played with Stan  
and little Dudley in the backyard.

Dudley smiled as he saw this but shrank back suddenly. This was scene from his memories. He suddenly remembered that day,  
it was a good day. Dudley turned around walked out of the house to the next bus stop. It was just two minutes away from the house.

Dudley tried to remember what have happened next after the scene in the backyard. But he just couldn´t recall his memories.  
"Hm… I know that it´s not long before…" Dudley looked up from the ground as he heard somebody screaming. It came from the Katswell house.

He watched Mr. Katswell having a discussion with his wife on the veranda of the house. Even though it was more a violent argument.  
"You stupid b*tch! That are my children and I can do with them whatever I want!" shouted Mr. Katswell at his wife.  
"But honey you can´t…"

"I can do whatever I want! I´m the boss here!" he staggered and raised his hand ready to beat his wife. Dudley had to do something.  
"Hey, you! Don´t even think about that!" Dudley ran towards them and planted himself in front of Mr. Katswell. "Shut up you stupid mutt!  
Nobody asked for your opinion!"

Katswell was about to ram is fist on the head of his wife if Dudley hadn´t reacted so fast. He grabbed his arm and twisted it behind Katswell´s back.  
"AHHH! You son of a…" Dudley twisted Katswell´s arm further behind his back. "AHHHH" he scremed.  
"Yeah! Doesn't feel good to be on the other side, does it?"

Dudley pushed Mr. Katwell away from him what made him flying into the mud. "Stupid mutt! I´m going to kill you!"  
"Get off!" shouted Dudley at him. With anger in his eyes Mr. Katswell turned around, walked away and mumbled something like "This isn´t over!"

Dudley stood there and watched amused how Katswell got away until he felt a hug. Mrs. Katswell flung her arms around him.  
"Thank you!" Dudley was surprised but he returned the hug. "It´s okay. He´s gone!"

"But he´ll come again… He always comes again. He´s my husband."  
"Then why don´t you just get divorced?" asked Dudley confused.  
"I just can´t be mad at him to long… I love him."  
"But he beats up you and your kids!" exclaimed Dudley even more confused.

"You just don´t understand this!" Mrs. Katswell began to cry and ran into her house.  
"What.. what.. was that?!" He was now totally perplexed. And to complete his misery saw his bus just drove away under his nose  
as he walked back from the veranda to the street. "Damn. Now I have to walk."

After a short warm up Dudley began to run through the streets towards the T.U.F.F. building.  
He ran not because he was in a hurry he ran to get his head free of all the thoughts that buzzed through his head.  
Will Katswell come back to his house and continue torturing his family?

Will his Dad get the Petropolis-Bomber or can Dudley at least prevent his death? Is his Dad´s death connect to the Bomber?  
And of course the most obvious question. Will he get back to his time again? So somehow Dudley was thankful that he missed his bus.  
Running always made him stop thinking.

As he arrived at the T.U.F.F. HQ he looked at his watch. "Not my record but it´s a good time." he entered the building and  
was about to went into the elevator but it wouldn´t open. Dudley pushed the button again. Nothing happened. "That w..w..won´t work."

A familiar little person stepped beside him. Dudley would recognize that voice everywhere. It was Keswick but not the Keswick he knew.  
This Keswick was almost 14 years younger.  
"Hello, you must be Mr. S..S..Swan? Or should I better call you Mr. Puppy junior?" asked Keswick who seemed to be inaugurated by Frank.

"Well, yeah. Hello Keswick."  
"Interesting…" noted Keswick. "Either this was a good guess or we k..k..know each other from somewhere."  
"It´s not the place where we know from it´s a different time. You´re still here at T.U.F.F. in the future."

Keswick seemed somehow unsatisfied with this answer. "That isn´t r..r..really the way I wanted my career to go... Anyway. How can I help the son of my friend´s friend?"  
"Well, first get to your lab. I´ll explain everything when were there."


	13. Chapter 13

"Is that really true? Evidences? In this case?" asked the chief excited.  
"Yes. And you can thank a..a..agent Katswell for that. She somehow found something in the debris of the destroyed building…  
It´s still u..u..unbelievable!"

"And you´re really sure that belongs to the case?" the chief tried to make himself sure.  
"Yes. I recognized the little iron piece as one of the little iron bullets which the B..B..Bomber seems to mix into the bomb  
so that it kills more p..p..people. A terrible but efficient method of k..k..killing."

Explained Keswick to the chief who waited concentrated until he finished his explanations.  
"And what does the combination of the explosive can tell us?"  
"Well, it seems to be some kind of explosive made from fertilizer and…"  
Keswick was about to finish his sentence as a horse in a black suit rushed into the office.

"Agent Taylor. FBI." he shouted. "I´m here to confiscate all the evidence you have about the case of the Petropolis-Bomber!"  
"No! We´re a secret agency! We´re not subordinate to the FBI!" The chief interjected confident. "So how about you turn around and leave again?"

"How about, no? I have a court decision!" Taylor waved with a piece of paper in front of the chief´s face.  
The chief whipped it out of his hand and began to study the paper. Finally he sighed and turned to Keswick. "Give him what he wants."

"B..B..But…"  
"Just do it." Keswick nodded and led Taylor reluctantly into his lab. Taylor pulled a usb-stick out of his pocket and handed it Keswick.  
"Copy me all your evidence on this usb-stick then you delete everything from your hard drives and then hand me all your files… Just give me all you got."

Keswick walked to his computer and began the data transport process.  
"Faster!" shouted Taylor at Keswick.  
"This t..t..takes it´s time. But you can take the iron pieces out of the m..m..mass spectrometer." Keswick tried not to show that he was really angry.  
Also he thought that something is wrong with this agent Taylor.

"Whatever…" meant Taylor and opened the mass spectrometer. Keswick turn his back to the computer and eyed Taylor very skeptically.  
"Hm… there´s something a..a..about him." As Taylor finally realized that Keswick looked at him he yelled at him.  
"Stop staring at me you little Nerd! And get back to your Computer!"

"Okay. That guy is on my l..l..list now!" thought Keswick and pulled the stick out of the usb port. He also grabbed a small device from his desk.  
"Is that all? No files?"

"I don´t use f..f..files" said Keswick baldly and handed him the usb-stick. "Good!" Taylor turned around and was about to leave.  
That was Keswick´s chance! He threw the little device from his desk and tried to hit one of the pockets of Taylor´s jacket. It worked!  
Keswick smiled smugly and watched Taylor leaving the building. "Soon…" He thought.

Forty minutes early Kitty was ordered into the chief´s office. As she entered it she saw the chief on his desk talking  
with a bunny which was standing next to his desk. It was Brian, the cop from the last Bomber crime scene.  
"I see." Said the chief and realized then that Kitty entered the room. "Ah, hello agent Katswell."

"You wanted to see me chief." Kitty was impatient because she actually wanted to speak to Keswick as soon as possible.  
But if the chief calls for her she had to obey.  
"Yes. I want to introduce your new temporary partner to you. Brian…"  
"No!" she shouted. "You can´t displace Dudley!"

"Nobody wants to displays Dudley, Kitty." The chief pacified her fast. "But the Bomber case is too important!  
And Brian is the best man for this job. He knows everything about it… or he is at least the only one who knows so much and is still alive."

"Thanks for your trust." Said Brian sarcastically.  
"You know why! The bombers favorite targets are police stations, fire stations and  
everything that are concerned with politicians." Enumerated the chief.  
"Yeah, yeah… So Kitty, I hope we will work together very well." He reached out his hand towards here and after a short time thinking  
she grabbed his hand and shook it.

"I hope so too." Sighed Kitty and left the office. She walked to her desk and sat down on her chair.  
As she buried her face in her hands she tried to handle this emptiness in here which she still couldn´t explain.  
She sat there quite a long time until she realized. "Oh… I have to visit Keswick! I still have questions." She stood up and walked to the lab.

On her way she collided with the FBI agent on her way to Keswick´s lab. She apologized but Taylor just ignored her.  
"Idiot." She mumbled and continued walking with her eyes pinned on the floor. Dudley´s funeral will be in five days and  
that was exactly the mood that added to her feeling of emptiness. Funeral mood.

She stepped into Keswick´s lab and saw him leaning against the wall. He had one of his hands covering his face. "Hey Keswick, who was that?"  
"Special a..a..agent Taylor, FBI. He confiscated all our evidences about the Bomber c..c..case."  
"Oh, great!" moaned Kitty.

When the FBI interferes into issues of another agency it always loses its jurisdiction, that´s at least how she felt it.  
That was some kind of FBI magic… or curse that depends on which side you´re standing.  
So always when Kitty heard that the FBI was involved she declared the case to a cold case for her. And she hated non closed cases.

"Darn, all this work for absolutely nothing! Anyway, I´m here to talk about something different with you."  
She opened her bag and pulled the diary out of it. "Look at this!" Keswick took the book and let the pages flew past his eyes.  
Kitty first asked herself if Keswick is kidding her but then remembered that he had a photographic memory. He began to sweat as he finished the book.

"I d..d..done nothing."  
"I haven´t accused you of anything."  
"Yeah, and I haven´t done a..a..anything! So everything is f..f..fine!" he protested forcefully.

"Keswick, I won´t harm you. I just want to make sense of this! I just want answers!"  
Keswick walked to his desk and pretended to work. "You wouldn´t understand. Go please. Maybe the chief is waiting for you."

Kitty didn´t move. "Then help me to understand." She could feel that Keswick knew something and that she was about to get what she want from him.  
"NO!" he shouted aggressively without turning around from his desk.

"Keswick, I know that you know something! I want answers! What happened on that day? Tell me the truth!" Kitty shouted back at him.  
Keswick threw the test tube he held in his hand against the wall and turned to her.

"So you w..w..want to know the truth?!" his voice began to crack. "The truth what happened in the night you w..w..waited for him?!  
When you were angry on him?!"  
Keswick stamped to his Computer and typed something in it. "Here! Watch it! Watch your t..t..truth!" On the screen a recording flashed up.  
It showed Dudley in a hall while a guy pointed his gun on his head.

Kitty went closer to the monitor and watched how Dudley took the guy out,  
how he first looked complacently on his fist saying something until the ceiling began to fall down.  
The recording ended with Dudley pulling the guy into an energy discharge. Then the camera seemed to get hit by a lump of concrete from the ceiling.

"Keswick what was that?" Kitty asked him unbelieving.  
"The end of a..a..agent Puppy."  
"But I thought…"  
"It was wrong" interrupted Keswick. "Just a f..f..fake."  
"But what have he done there?"

"Dudley owned me a favor and that was the f..f..favor. He had to destroy this machine!"  
Keswick looked at the ground and whispered. "I killed him." Kitty not understood anything anymore.  
Dudley didn´t die in a car accident but in this energy discharge? And why thought Keswick he killed him?

That was very confusing. "I need to sit down" she finally said and grabbed one of the lab stools.  
"I killed him." Repeated Keswick. "I killed him. I killed him. I KILLED HIM!" he cried.  
"Calm down Keswick!"  
"HOW?! I SENT HIM ON THIS M..M..MISSION! WITHOUT ANY HELP! WITHOUT T..T..TELLING HIM THE RISKS! I KILLED MY FRIEND!"

"You haven´t killed him. And he knew the risks… he was a T.U.F.F. agent"  
Kitty was calm on the surface but in her inner was mixture of grief, anger and confusion.  
She liked to beat up Keswick and comfort him at the same time. She also liked to run away and cry. But she had to stay calm.

It wouldn´t have any use if she break down. And beating up Keswick had also no use. She still wanted answers.  
"Keswick, what exactly did Dudley there?"  
"He destroyed a portal device and maybe s..s..saved the world through that… at least I hope that because then his d..d..dead would have been in vain."

"Saved the world? How?" Keswick explained it to her like he explained it Dudley days ago.  
But this time he was able to use more complicated words. As he finished Kitty had just one question.  
"You said there is a certain probability that he is still alive?" her eyes glittered as she waited for the answer.

"Just 0.0001 percent. I don´t think that he s..s..survived it."  
"But it´s possible, isn´t it?"  
"Kitty" sighed Keswick. "You know that I would w..w..wish the same but we have to stay realistic.  
I can name you off the top of my head at least s..s..sixty different ways how he could have died! Believe me, he´s gone. And it´s my f..f..fault!"

"No, I won´t give him up! I´ll search for him!"  
"Kitty, you have concern yourself with the fact that he´s d..d..dead! He won´t come back!"  
"So I should do it like you and sit in a corner in self-pity? No I prefer doing something!" she stood up from the stool and walked out of the lab.

She ignored Keswick who yelled after her  
"You can´t b..b..bring him back! He IS dead! And w..w..won´t come back!"  
But that didn´t matter for her anymore she had something better than the thing Keswick called truth.

She had hope again. "He is still somewhere! I can feel it!" Kitty ran out of the T.U.F.F. building into the pouring rain and felt the rain drops on her face.  
She ran on and on until and realized that she had no idea where she was running at all. But that didn´t make her stop.  
No, she first stopped at the river completely out of breath.

"Whoa!" she spluttered "I´m already here?!" Her lungs burned. And she was drenched from the rain which was getting heavier.  
It wasn´t happiness what she felt right now, it was pure euphoria! She was almost too happy.

"Why is that all getting me so down? One day I´m depressive as hell and the other day…" she thought about that but didn´t get it.  
Even it was obvious for everyone around. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. I first have to find Dudley. Somehow…"


	14. Chapter 14

"I don´t t..t..think that I can help you, Mr. Puppy." Dudley sat on a lab stool and was exhausted.  
Keswick has tortured him with all kind of questions and tests since two hours. And because of any reason Dudley had to swallow  
a radioactive trigger for special medical examinations. But Keswick hadn´t exanimated him. He just grinned evilly as Dudley drank out of the little cup.  
That really scared him.

"There is no FBI file about the B..B..Bomber case. But I maybe know s..s..someone who can help you with your time travel problem." Keswick added.  
"Okay, what do you want?" The phrase from Keswick seemed like the usual 'Do ut des' thing. I´ll help you if you help me.  
"You want to know something about your future?" asked Dudley annoyed.  
"NO! And don´t d..d..dare telling me anything!"  
"Why?"  
"Never heard of the g..g..grandfather paradox?"

"Para.. what?" Dudley seemed really to have never heard of that so he began to explain it.  
"Well you would violate the C..C..Causality. Here is an example. You travel back in time and k..k..kill your own grandfather…"  
"Why should I do that?!" interjected Dudley shocked.

"I don´t know, maybe you hated him because he never gave you C..c..christmas presents? Let´s just say you have a reason.  
Okay? So you kill him and that of course never gave your g..g..grandfather the chance to father your father and he can´t of course f..f..father you.  
So, you were never born. But if you were never b..b..born, who could travel through time and kill your grandfather?  
So if nobody have killed your grandfather you were b..b..born and able to travel…"

"Yeah, I think I understood."  
"And the p..p..problem is that some scientist speculate that if somebody v..v..violent this Causality ,  
if that´s even possible what most scientist doubt, that the universe would a..a..annihilate itself!" Explained Keswick.  
"And what are we going to do against it?"

"I will d..d..delete my memories after that and you, well that´s also the t..t..thing I want from you,  
don´t run around and tell e..e..everybody who you are until your back in your time and don´t change anything!" said Keswick pulled  
his glasses down and looked grinning at Dudley.

"I expected that you want something… I don´t know… real."  
"Let´s say that I l..l..like the world like it is right now. Existing!" Keswick stepped towards Dudley and offered him his hand to shake it.  
"It was a p..p..pleasure to meet you, Mr. Puppy." Dudley grabbed his hand and shook it.

"Also for me Keswick… By the way who´s your contact?"  
"Doctor Johann Wilhelm Möbius! The a..a..address is on this note. Good luck."  
Dudley left the building and thought about the thing with the grandfather paradox.

"Great, more things I have to watch out for!" And as if this wasn't enough it started to rain. "Oh, good. A nice little shower. I love my live!"  
It was almost one o´clock and no bus drove now. Dudley had to walk… again. But this time he didn´t run he just strolled  
through the empty streets and enjoyed the loneliness. He watched how the rain beat down on the street.

Little puddles began to form in the gutter channels beside the street. It was February but even if it was really cold the snow was already melted away.  
The rain created a really relaxing sound and Dudley began to think about a phrase he knew out of a book he once read.  
Actually it was the only book he read and that also just to impress Kitty.

"It was a rain." He quoted with a slow, dark and rough voice. "A heavy rain. A rain which washed all the scum into the gutter of oblivion.  
My name is Clancy Jones. Private investigator. This one day, as the rain not seemed to stop, I was sitting behind my desk and…" Dudley stopped.  
He looked into the distance. Was there somebody lying in the front yard over there?

Or was that just a stone or a bush. Carefully got closer to whatever it was. And it was a person!  
He began to run and as he stood above it he saw who it was. Kerry Katswell. Dudley kneed down to her and felt her pulse.  
It was weak but still there. "What´s going on here? She is almost two blocks away from her home." Dudley lifted her up. She was light.

"Was she running away? I better bring her to my house." He started to walk as fast as he could and tried in the meantime to speak to her.  
"Kerry, wake up! It´s me Jason! What happened?!"  
"Save… you have to… save" she breathed exhausted. "Save? Whom?"

"Kitty…" Dudley suddenly realized what she meant. "Damn!" he began to run.  
As he finally reached the door of his house he kicked against it because he had no free hand. After a short while Frank opened the door.  
He not seemed like somebody who was just woken up so he maybe was still working on his project.  
Dudley handed Frank, who looked at him nonplussed, Kerry.

"What?" he asked.  
"No time to explain! Take care of her, I have to take care of someone else."  
Dudley turned around and ran as fast as it was possible for his feet towards the Katswell´s house.  
"When it´s the night which Kitty told me about I have to hurry…" He stood in the front yard and peeped through the windows.

He searched for a special room, Kitty´s room. "Oh damn. Not the first floor!" He looked up and saw how a light was turned on up there.  
"Shit!" Dudley searched for a way up. There was a tree which grew next to the window. "Seems like the only way!"  
he climbed up the tree and balanced over branch to the window.

And as he saw Katswell opening his pants in front of his little daughter he didn´t hesitate.  
Dudley jumped through the closed window and broke the glass. With a roll-over he slowed down and jumped back on his feet again.  
Before Mr. Katswell knew what happened Dudley already kicked his feet away. He hit the ground hard.

Dudley pounced on him and began to ram his fist into Katswell´s face. "YOU BASTARD!" he shouted.  
Katswell tried to defend himself but he had no chance against Dudley. "HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO HER?!" Dudley punched himself into rage.  
"TELL ME HOW?!" Before Katswell passed out he stopped, grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up.  
Dudley breathed heavily and looked at his work. The face of Kitty´s and Kerry´s Dad was just a bloody mush.

It would be easy for Dudley to knock him out right now but he didn´t want him to faint, he wanted him to suffer.  
Dudley pressed him against the wall and spoke slowly and clear.  
"Listen to these words because I won´t repeat them!" Dudley shook him to gain his complete attention.

"You have one minute to get out of here! Understood? One minute! You leave the city and the state!  
It doesn´t matter for me where you will go, just go! I don´t want to see your gross visage again in this city or near this family!"  
Dudley pulled him close to him and whispered in his ear.

"If you won´t do that… I´m going to kill you! You can try to run away but I will get you and kill you!  
I will kill you in the most painful way that you could imagine! Understood?!" Katswell nodded weakly. Dudley threw him to the ground.  
He pulled a tissue out of his pocket and flung it at him.

"Wash yourself! You´re disgusting me!" Dudley never saw somebody who was beaten up so hard crawling so fast.  
Katswell definitely was scared to death and Dudley enjoyed it. As Katswell crawled out of the room he heard a quiet snivel from behind him.  
It was Kitty who stood terrified in the corner of her room.

Dudley came closer to the little girl and clasped her to him. "Everything okay, sweety. He´s gone!" He stroked her head softly.  
"Who… who are you?" she asked intimidated. Dudley couldn´t resist to say the next words. It was like they were somehow put in his mouth.  
"Just a friendly T.U.F.F. agent." He smiled at her as she wiped the tears out of her eyes with her sleeve of her pajama and smiled back.

"Look, I have to go now but I´ll watch after you."  
"Promised?"  
"Promised." Replied Dudley and left the room on the same way he entered it. He jumped from the tree and saw Katswell crawling over the sidewalk.  
Dudley called behind him. "Tic tac, tic tac. Your minute is soon over!" Katswell didn´t look back but began to crawl faster.

"Yeah crawl you little maggot!" he thought angry and walked back home. There was Frank standing next to Kerry who lay on the couch.  
"Dudley, what was that? Have you done this?!"  
"No" answered Dudley tired. He sat down on the arm chair beside the couch. "Her father did that to her!"

"Damn." Frank shook his head unbelieving. "I always knew that this Katswell was a bastard but I would have never thought that…"  
He turned around and walked to the door.  
"Where do you think you going?"  
"I´ll go and take care of this Katswell. I will…"

"Already happened." Interrupted him Dudley and showed him his blood-smeared hands.  
"He´ll never harm someone, I think."  
"Have you…?"  
"No. But I advised him to leave the city… How is she?" Dudley pointed at Kerry.

"She has a big bump on her head. But I think she´s just sleeping. And that´s good." said Frank.  
"That bump is just the damage we see." It was depressing to see Kerry and it was again Frank who tried to change the subject.

"What have you found out at T.U.F.F.?"  
"I have a contact that can help me and I found out that there exists no FBI file about the Petropolis-Bomber."  
"But there was this FBI agent every time… Something is foul here, definitely" said Frank confidently.

"Could we discuss this tomorrow? I´m tired"  
"Yeah. You should go to sleep. I´ll keep an eye on here."  
"No, it´s better if she sees someone she knows when she wakes up. And we know each other." Explained Dudley

"Well…Okay. Good night, Dudley."  
"Good night, Dad." Returned Dudley. Frank walked up stairs and Dudley leaned back in the arm chair with his eyes pinned on Kerry.  
"If I just were faster…" he thought.

Hours passed by until Kerry moved herself. She sat up on the couch and looked disorientated around.  
The last thing she remembered was that she was running away from home and then. She must have stumbled and fallen on her head exactly  
on the spot where this Swan hit her with this stone.

And speaking of the devil she saw him dozing on the arm chair next to her.  
"Good morning!" he yawned at her.  
"Where am I?" she asked.  
"You´re safe."

"Okay…" she pulled her knees under her chin, laid her forehead on them and began to cry.  
"I know what happened…" Dudley said as sympathetically as he could even he was still angry on  
Mr. Katswell and himself.  
"I was able to prevent this. I mean I knew it. Kitty told me!" he always thought.

"What´s with Kitty?" asked Kerry sobbing. "Is she save? Has he…"  
"No" replied Dudley fast. "I was able to prevent this."  
"Thank you. I at least she can…" Kerry began to cry again.

"Shhh…" Dudley hugged her and felt how in his arms Kerry let it all out. "You´re save. He´s gone…"  
"Thank you." These words hit Dudley really hard.

"If she knew it she wouldn´t thank me! I´m responsible! I knew it and I wasn´t there!"  
he thought and then said.  
"I´ll bring you home. Don´t worry. He´s gone and won´t come back."  
Kerry nodded and they walked together through the door.


	15. Chapter 15

"Oh my…" Brian was rudley awaken out of his sleep by thunder. It was raining the whole day and it seems that the rain became a real storm. Brian found himself not in his bed, no he was on his desk. "I slept away on my desk again… I sleep bad since the attacks had started." Brian stood up from his chair and stretched. He was in the middle of the small shabby one-room apartment.

It had no separate bathroom, no separate kitchen and no separate bedroom. Everything was integrated in this one room, that was not very hygienic but enough for him. But one thing he insisted on as he bought the apartment, it was a bidet. Even if he not used it he thought that it somehow gave the apartment a little French touch.

Brian just needed a recommencement after the things that happened to him. Brian walked to his wall of fame. That was just a wall with newspaper articles in which he was named like. _Policeman Brian Cooper saved kid out of a burning car_ or _policeman Brian Cooper wounded after saving hostages out of a bank robbery_.

He achieved much in his 15 years of police service but the city never really thanked him. Always disregarded by every promotion, always ridiculed because he was a bunny police officer and then the accident. Brian turned away from his wall and sat down on his desk again and began to sort the papers that he used as a pillow minutes ago.

"Nothing interesting…" he suddenly felt silent. That always happened if the photo struck his eyes. This nice framed photo pictured a better time in his life, a happier. It was a family photo, with his wife and three kids in it. "I thought I had put you away." He said to the photo. That was intention for weeks now but he just not had the heart to do it even if he was always reminiscent of this one night.

It was also raining and he drove with his family in the car down the country road towards home. Another car suddenly appeared from behind and crossed their lane what made Brian brake abruptly. The road was slippery through the rain and Brian just lost control over his vehicle. The car rammed a tree. The next things were blurred in his memory. But there was one thing he remembered clearly.

He regained in this moment his consciousness and saw someone. He first thought that it was someone who saw the accident and wanted to help or it even was the driver of the other car who wanted to help. The second thing was true but the other guy didn´t want to help, he rummaged in Brian´s jacket and picked his wallet out. Brian tried desperately to grab the guy´s hand and moaned "Help!"

But the other driver just put out the money of his wallet, threw it back to Brian and drove away with his car. That guy first caused the accident and then burgled them. Next thing Brian remembered was that he woke up in a hospital bed. He got away with a few broken bones and lacerations. But his family… no one made it out of the car wreck. They all died.

His wife, his two daughters and his son. Torn out of their lifes by a guy that didn´t give a damn about the other people around him. Brian first used his whole energy to find this guy but he just had the face of that guy which was etched in his memory and nothing more. And that was an impossible mission. Every day Brian´s hope to find this guy sank.

Now two years after that he had no more energy for this. The only things he did are working and sleeping. But he saw the face every night. And if he would see this guy someday he would make a short shrift of him, that was sure. The other thing that was on his heart was the recent dead of his father what was just three months ago.

But it wasn´t so hard for him because he laid in a coma for eight years now. Also after a car crash… It somehow lay like a curse on the family. He, his father and his grandfather had car crashes. But the dead itself didn´t lie on his heart it was more the heritage he received from his Dad. A letter, just a letter. With a really strange content "Save the city and all of us!" was the main message.

And then also these nightmares he had with that thing in it… But it was his father´s last wish so he did what he wanted and now he also saw that it was important what he had to do. "Awww… I need a drink." Brian walked to the bidet. It was filled with ice and in that ice a bottle was lying. What made the primary purpose for his bidet apparent. A bottle cooler.

Brian pulled the bottle out of the ice and read the label. "Absinth… when have I bought this? I can´t remember… Maybe I was drunk." He turned it round to search for the percentage number that shows the amount of alcohol. "80 percent?! Wow… well that explains why I bought it…" Brian opened the bottle and took a big gulp out of it.

That was a really hard stuff but no wonder if you drink almost the half bottle. A normal liver wouldn´t stand this flushing with almost pure alcohol but Brian got used to it. He never been a drinker but the accident changed it. "I should really stop to drink." He said and took another gulp. But he suddenly dropped the bottle because of a loud noise from outside which startled him.

It sounded like a thunder but it was just too loud for that. Brian ran to his window and gazed into the darkness of night. Somewhere in the distance a strong light flickered. "I don´t think that was a lightning!" he said and he was right. Something burnt in the city. And Brian knew that the fire didn´t stem from a housewife that had forgot to turn of the oven.

"Damn… That´s just not the right time." Brian rushed to his phone and dialed Kitty´s number. He had to wait a felt eternity until Kitty finally answered with a bleary "Hello?"  
"The Bomber struck again!" he just yelled into the phone and hung up. After that he grabbed his jacket and turned around a last time before he left the apartment.

"If you can hear me, Dad. I just do this for you and because it´s necessary." Then he head off to towards the burning house. There was a new crime scene waiting.


	16. Chapter 16

Kitty sat on ancient luxury chairs in front of a solid oak wood desk which was just as luxury and ancient.  
It was a turbulent day for here. She was waked up from her sleep by her phone. Brian called her and just said.  
"The Bomber struck again!" and hung up then. Even if the FBI confiscated everything the chief didn´t give the case up.

Actually also the fact that Keswick didn´t delete everything from his hard drives mattered.  
It was luck that the FBI agent was behaved so rude against Keswick otherwise he had done what agent Taylor wanted him to do.  
Kitty looked around from her chair.

Beside her on her right and left side sat the chief and Keswick on chairs which were identical to hers.  
They all were in a wide office which was furnished in the style of the chairs. Next to Keswick´s on his left side sat Peg Puppy  
and in the row behind him some of Dudley´s friends were sitting.

Kitty recognized two of them. The one was Roger, the dog had his blonde hair which usually covered his eyes cut, and the other one was Phil,  
the short dull-yellow bulldog wore a smoking like Roger. The third one was a stranger to her. He was a chubby pug who also wore a smoking.

Those were all of his characteristics. All three looked melancholically to the ground. One chair was vacant.  
Kitty looked to Peg who dried her eyes with a handkerchief. The chief looked with a similar expression on his face like the three in the back row.  
Keswick turned to her.

"Did you know that Dudley h..h..had drew up his last will?"  
"No."  
"It´s surprising that he thought about that… I mean, he wasn´t the far-sighted guy."  
He whispered in her ear. "And I don´t think he would have ever expected that that I would send him to his dead…"

"Keswick, stop blaming yourself." She interrupted. "And stop giving him up. I still have…" The door opened  
and an elder fox with silver-grey fur in a black dress entered the room. Kitty recognized her from the one day in the park.  
She was the one who played chess with Dudley. She couldn´t remember her name or maybe she never heard her name.

The lady sat down in the back row beside the pug. Briefly after her a cow in a robe entered the office. "Hello everyone. My name is Mr. Fernandez."  
He greeted with empathy in his voice. "We gathered here for the opening of Mr. Puppy´s will."  
The cow walked to the desk and sat down on an armchair behind it.

"Mr. Puppy decided to record a video-will. So I just push the play button on my remote and hold my tongue."  
He stretched out his arm and pressed with his finger on the remote in his hand. The wide flat screen on the wall behind him started to play a video.  
The video showed Dudley in a smoking sitting in an armchair in front of a fireplace.

The whole scene seemed posed and unnaturally for him. "Hello friends and family. I Dudley Puppy, in full command of my mental faculties… HAHA"  
Dudley leaned back in the chair and laughed loud. "Oh come on, do I really have to do this?"

"Yes." Said a deep voice from behind the camera. "The training is over. The dangerous part begins now. So you better arrange your estate."  
"Is this going to be so dangerous?"  
"More than you would even imagine…" replied the voice.

"Okay… But then we do this we will do it my way!" Dudley took of the tie and opened two buttons on his shirt.  
"Phew… Hot in her…"  
"Please, leave your pants on." Meant the voice mockingly. Dudley answered it just by showing the person behind the camera his middle finger.

"Okay. Are we ready?" asked Dudley finally.  
"Uhm… we are already recording so… yes!"  
"Okay." Dudley looked now directly into the camera and began to smile.  
"Hey guys! If you watching this it means that I´m dead. Hm… I wonder how I died…"

"Choked on a chilly dog!" The voice called in.  
"Shut up! …Well anyway, I don´t want to do a long introduction so I come directly to distribution of my stuff. I begin with my Mom."  
He cleared his throat and continued.

"Mom, you have born and raised me. You loved and protected me and I think there are no words that can describe how thankful I am for that."  
Kitty heard a soft whine from Peg´s direction.  
"Mom. I´m sorry that you have to go through this again. Dad and now me… I don´t know If that can comfort you but…"

Dudley pulled his father´s gun out and held it into the camera. "This is Dad´s gun. You said once that it would be a nice memento.  
The gun also helped me so maybe you could use it as a memento for us two." Dudley holstered the gun.

"But Dudley, what if your body vanishes without trace?" The voice remarked.  
"Hm… is that possible?" asked Dudley.  
"Yes. I can name you off the top of my head at least sixty different ways how that could happen."  
"Please spare me the that list… Then you will hand it to my Mom."

"Pardon?"  
"You´ll manage this somehow." Said Dudley confidently smiling.  
"I have something better to do with my time!" complained the voice.  
"First, this is my last will and second when you got better things to do, why are you here?"  
"That is my leisure time activity. I am just here to annoy you!"

"I thought something like that. But please…" Dudley pulled a sulky face and looked at the place where the owner of the voice seemed to stand.  
"Okay" sighed the voice. "I will give it to her at your funeral IF this happens."  
"Thanks." Dudley turned back to the camera. "Now chief, you were always some kind of second father for me.  
You always looked with great tolerance about my … let´s call it little stupidities. And so I thought what I would give my father."

Dudley bent down and picked up a bottle of whiskey from under the armchair. "This is an old…"  
"From where did you get this?!" asked the voice angry. "This is my good whiskey!"  
"Yeah, I know! I´ll take it as payment for the Sullivan thing! Anyway chief, this is an old whiskey… I got it after a very risky mission.  
It reminds me what I have done there and what I have and would have sacrificed." Dudley put the bottle back on the ground.

"Keswick. You always provided me and Kitty with quiet a lot of gadgets. But you were more than just the guy from the lab.  
You were my friend… and somehow also the brother that has never started taking drugs… at least that´s what I hope. I don´t think that James is here…"

Dudley looked sad as he said that but changed his expression again fast and pulled out a weird looking device out. "So this thing is for you. I´ll be sure that you´ll have fun with that… or at least figure out what it is. It´s a mystery for me but you´ll like mysteries and it´s High-Tec and you High-Tec like that too."

"That is also mine! From where do you get all my stuff?! I do not even have an apartment or storage here! Do you even know what this is?!" the voice exclaimed.  
"I just saw it and thought: 'Keswick would like it.' "  
"FROM WHERE HAVE YOU GRABBED IT?!"

Dudley just grinned and then continued.  
"Now to my Bros. WHAT`S UP!" shouted Dudley and he received a  
"WHAT`S UP!" from the three guys who were suddenly broke free of their apathy. For that they were looked very angry by Peg.  
That let them fall silent again immediately. Dudley almost died of laughter on the screen.

It was like he reacted to what the guys did. "Hahaha… okay. We had a lot of cool adventures together. I have something special for you."  
He whipped his credit card out of his breast pocket. "I think there should be some dollars left on it.  
I want you three to party with that as hard as you can! Understood?" The three nodded and exchanged mischievous looks.

"Now to you Roxanna." The elder fox looked up from the ground. "We played chess together almost every sunday and  
you listened patiently to all my problems… You have been some kind of psychotherapist for me. Chess was your game this is mine."  
Dudley showed his ball-in-the-cup-game into the camera.

"Take care of it. It is… was very precious for me." Dudley now began to pack all the things that he had mentioned into a shoe box.  
While he was packing he took a deep breath and spoke with his eyes on the shoe box.

"Kitty, you are the last. We have been through a lot together… I´m just… you know sorry… for everything I done to you.  
But the thing that I´m sorry the most is that these words couldn´t pass my lips in my lifetime." Dudley took another deep breath and stared into the camera.

"I… I love you. I always did and will do. You are the owner of my heart."  
"Wow.. that´s really soppy." Said the voice.  
"SHUT UP… Well everyone, that´s it. See you on the other side."

After this sentence the video ended. Kitty sat there and felt like everyone stared at her.  
Mr. Fernandez finally broke the awkward silence.  
"Well, I have the shoe box from the video here" He put it on the table and opened it.

The mourners gathered around it and waited to get their part of the legacy. Fernandez handed everyone their piece in the order  
in which Dudley mentioned them in the video. Just Kitty sat on her chair absorbed in thoughts.

"He loved me? He loved me and I never recognized it?" again she felt this euphoria. This unbelievable happiness.  
"What´s wrong with me. I can´t understand this!" she said loud.  
"You can´t understand what?" asked Roxanna who just came from the desk with the ball-in-the-cup-game in her hand.

"Oh, it´s just… I know it sounds weird but I feel so happy right now."  
"But you know that he´s dead, right?" Roxanna was surprised by this very abnormally reaction.  
Kitty looked around and whispered so that no one else could hear her words.

"I don´t think that! There are certain circumstances that give me the idea that he´s still alive."  
"Oh cutie…" sighed Roxanna and looked at her like she was crazy.  
"Don´t 'oh cutie' me! I can feel it!" Roxanna didn´t want to start a discussion in here so she tried a more diplomatic way.

"Okay let´s pretend that your 'feeling' is right. That means he´s alive and he said to you that he loved you… And this makes you happy." she summarized  
"Yes."  
"Think about it!" giggled Roxanna.

"I don´t know what you mean I…" and finally the scales fall from her eyes.  
"So you mean…"  
"You´re in love, girl. You´re so badly in love."  
"What? But… how?!" asked Kitty baffled.

"Is that so odd? He was a nice guy…"  
"Yeah a nice guy! But also nothing more than a friend!" protested Kitty.  
"Really? Your body language says something else."

"Uhm… no! My body language says nothing about me! I was trained about outbursts of body language!"  
"Okay… Dudley!" Kitty smiled as she heard his name and immediately covered her mouth with her hands.

"You see? What the heart desires is sometimes hard to comprehend for the mind that belongs to it."  
She said that like she was holding a skull in her hand.  
"Okay Hamlet, but that proves nothing!"

"Think what you want." Replied Roxanna smiling. "But I just hope for you that your little theory is right and we´ll see Dudley again soon."  
She turned her back to Kitty and left the room while she was whistling the wedding marsh.  
"A bit macabre if Dudley is really dead but it will emphasize my words…" Roxanna thought.


	17. Chapter 17

Dudley stood in front of the door of a small terraced house again. He went straight from the Katswell house,  
where he brought Kerry, to the house of Doctor Möbius. "History repeating. Keswick always sends me to this address."  
He thought and knocked at the door. A younger version of the Möbius opened the door. Well younger was maybe exaggerated,  
the guy still was circa 50 years old.  
"Mr. Puppy?" he asked. Keswick must have informed him.

"Yes."  
"Come in." The german shepherd led him into his house which looked exactly like it looked the last time Dudley where there.  
Möbius hasn´t changed anything… or will not change anything. He offered him to sit on the same armchair like the last time he was there.

"Okay, Mr. Puppy. My former student Keswick has already informed me even if I have to admit that he just told me about the what not about the how."  
Dudley recognized that Möbius now had a strong accent which he couldn´t assign. It seemed that he will give up the accent in about 14 years.  
"So, please tell me how you came here. To this period of time."

"It was an accident with a portal which was designed after your idea." Dudley explained.  
"What kind of accident?"  
"I tried to… uhm… destroy it."

"But why?" Möbius didn´t sound angry or confused. It was like he really just wanted to hear his reason.  
"The technology was just too dangerous. Somebody had to do that."  
The doctor nodded contentedly. "That´s what I wanted to hear."  
"I don´t understand." Dudley replied.

"Of course not" laughed Möbius. "It was a test. And you passed it! Congratulations."  
"What kind of test?" Dudley understood nothing.  
"If you can differ between right and wrong. Nothing more."  
"But why should you appreciate it that everything you worked for get destroyed?"

"First, I haven´t begun working on it, up to now it´s just an idea I have which has to be proved.  
And second I never wanted to publish it or even built a portal." Möbius made clear.  
"But why have you even done research if…"

"Because we can´t shut our eyes to the truth, to facts. Every idea which is thinkable will be thought!  
And it´s in our responsibility to determine if we should use these ideas or not. I have to do research to see if the idea is possible and  
if it´s possible to decide if we are ready for it."

"I think I´m the evidence for the possibility of your idea." Dudley replied baldly.  
"Yes, you are. And your presence here is wrong like this technology. And because of your presence  
I will delete my memories after your visit to prevent a paradox… I hope Keswick done the same."

"He mentioned that he´ll do it." Dudley meant confidently.  
"Good, good… But back to the important thing. You destroyed it and then?"  
"There was some kind of discharge and I walked into it. And before you ask me why I was so stupid to walk into it,  
the way back was blocked and the ceiling started to fall down. The only thing I thought was 'Portal! Portal!' "

"Okay…" Möbius lay a hand on his mouth and looked thinking at Dudley. "Any other information?"  
"Uhm…"  
"Everything could help."  
"Yeah there was something." Dudley remembered. "An announcement over the speakers… something about the dark energy level."

"Hm…" Möbius closed his eyes and Dudley could practically see his mind working. His head became red and  
he began to click with the fingers on the hand which was not pressed on his mouth. All in all he looked like a tea pot in this position.  
Dudley just waited that Möbius emit steam.

"There is… Maybe… But if…" He mumbled deeply in thoughts. "I think I… I GOT IT!" shouted Möbius and jumped out of his armchair.  
"I got it!" he repeated happy as a little child. "The huge amount of energy must have ripped a hole into the space-time.  
If my and Einstein´s theory are right that means that mass equals energy. And mass can warp space and even rip it…"

"What do you mean?" Dudley didn´t even understood half of these words. They were like a different language and science was never Dudley´s world.  
"I mean wormholes!" Another word Dudley didn´t understand.  
"What?"

"A wormhole. A connection between two points in space."  
"So, you mean a portal?"  
"Well, kind of… But a portal is a controlled version of a wormhole. A portal brings you from A to B.  
A wormhole can bring you from A today to B in ten years. It can connect two points but also two times. And that´s your way back!" explained Möbius.

"But I tried to prevent to rip a hole into space time!"  
"Yeah and normally it would have become worse but the down falling ceiling maybe destroyed the portal before that happened."  
"Okay" Dudley said slowly. "And how do we generate a wormhole?"  
"Well… That´s the problem… I have no idea." Admitted Möbius embarrassed.

"Oh come on… Use your superbrain!" begged Dudley who felt the hope that was growing began to die. The Doctor sighed and went back to 'tea pot mode'.  
"There could… if…" he sank down on the armchair again. "Energy… time…" he mumbled. Möbius head went more and more red.  
"I should get him some ice… This guy is heating up the room!" thought Dudley amused by the thinking Möbius.

Möbius opened his eyes but this time he didn´t jumped happily out of his armchair. "Okay…" He breathed heavily in and out.  
"Wormholes are natural phenomena. Maybe, if you´re lucky, one will occur here. But that´s very unlikely!  
Also it could teleport you anywhere. As I said it´s an uncontrolled version of a portal!"

"Do you mean I´m stuck here? For the next 14 years?!" asked Dudley shocked.  
"Well yes… The best thing is that you leave the city or even the country and search for a little place where you can live the next decade."  
That suggestion was really not worth discussing for Dudley.

Sitting 14 years somewhere waiting that he can reset his life again was a terrible thought. How old would he be then? 38?  
That was already old enough for a mid-life crisis, old enough to be married and to have two kids and old enough to have a high blood cholesterol level.  
But maybe too old for a few things. Too old to eat chilly dogs, too old for his job at T.U.F.F. and maybe too old for Kitty.

"Is there really no other way?" Dudley would have clutched at every straw in that moment.  
"No, I don´t think that. Or do you know a way to generate a huge amount of energy and are you able to hold it stable for a moment and…"  
"Please stop it…" Dudley stood up from the armchair and walked directly to the door.

"I have to go now! I just…" He didn´t complete the sentence he just pushed the door open and into the front yard.  
"WHY?!" he screamed towards the clouds. "WHY?! DOES THIS HAPPEN TO ME?! I JUST WANT TO GO HOME!" tears ran down his cheeks.  
All hope he had shattered in him. "WHY!?" he screamed again.

"Because it was your decision! It is always because of that!" Dudley looked down from the sky and saw me.  
"YOU!" Dudley jumped towards me ready to fight. But I dodged his attack and grabbed him by his neck.  
"Come on, really? You think you have a chance?"

"LET ME GO AND FIGHT ME!" shouted Dudley at me.  
"I´m not here to fight you! I´m here to help!" I dragged him on his neck back into the house of Möbius.  
The Doctor just stared at me as I came in with Dudley in tow. "What are you doing here?!" he asked me surprised.

"Why can´t you just say 'Hello advisor'?"  
"Hello advisor, what are you doing here?!" he retorted. I threw Dudley on the ground.  
He got up on his feet immediately and took a fighting position. "Put your hands down!" I ordered him angrily.  
"If you want me and Möbius bringing you back stop this aggressive behavior!"

Dudley let hands fall down and looked amazed at me. "Why should YOU help me?"  
"Hey, do you remember when we first met? I said to you that we are friends. I am not your boss,  
I am your friend! And friends help each other!"  
"Since when we became friends?!" he asked me still with that expression on his face.

"In the moment Sullivan´s head burst into pieces! That was the moment you sign the friendship contract!"  
Dudley always grinned stupidly when he remembered about Sullivan and his head. In the meantime I turned to Möbius and  
handed him a blue print which I pulled out of my pocket. "We will bring this dog back home, Doc."

Möbius studied the plans and looked back at me confused.  
"What the heck is this?"  
"A very primitive form of a time machine. Even if it is dependent on the circumstances -sun activity, weather, ect.- it will be enough for reaching our aim!"

"And you want me to build this?!" he looked at me like I was crazy.  
"I want you to build this in 36 hours with my help!"  
"36 hours?!" exclaimed Möbius. "This is completely impossible! And what do you mean with help?!"

"I mean that I will help you! I will get my hands dirty!"  
"You?!" Möbius laughed bitterly. "You never done anything! Why should you start now?!"  
"I have my reasons! Now roll up your sleeves! We got work to do!"  
"Do I have a choice?"

"You have the same choice as you always…"  
"Yeah…" he interrupted me right away. "I´m going to call some people… We´ll need much stuff to build this."  
Möbius turned annoyed around and walked to his phone.

"Why does everybody hates me?" I asked myself.  
"Because you pissing people off!" Dudley answered me quickly.  
"Yeah, that could be but that also was a rhetorical question so… Anyway. I have something to do for you too."

"I would do everything to get back to my time!" Dudley sounded eagerly now and I was glad to see him not so depressed like in the front yard.  
He almost gave up hope and that was something I would never allow. "Good! You have to go to the new Petropolis nuclear power plant.  
You have to infiltrate it and install this little device here into the power distributor! It will divert all the power to this house. And we will need much power!"

I handed him the device and a wiring diagram with the spot drew in where he should install the device.  
"And Dudley, you should know that I should not be here and help you! It is also dangerous for me. I am breaking a ton of rules!  
What I want to say is that we only got this one attempt. And we have to make it count! No mistakes now. Or we are both f*cked! Understood?"

I was tensed and Dudley felt it. He nodded and said the words that I had never expected after all this.  
"Hey, everything going to be fine. Trust me." He ran out of the house and left me amazed back.  
"This crazy mutt. Jumps from sad to happy in seconds. That is what hope can do…" I thought.  
"Or a mental sickness…"


	18. Chapter 18

Kitty walked through the ruins of a hospital. There was not much left of it just a big pile of rubble.  
Dust lay in the air which was lighted by the setting sun. Kitty pressed a piece of cloth on her mouth and nose to prevent that she directly inhaled  
the dust and also the stench which was all around her. Kitty new this stench but she hoped that she was mistaken.

"This is far too much!" she thought. This act was even for the Bomber cruel. His usual attack targets were for example  
things like the major´s banquette party. It was of course bad to kill politicians, that was out of question,  
but blowing up a child´s hospital was disgusting. And with that a new low point was reached not only for the Bomber, for all criminals in Petropolis.

A low point no other will ever overcome she hoped. Also this time the way of blowing things up changed. It seems like that the guy became more brutal  
and destructive. Usually the Bomber has used small bombs with little iron pieces on it which became dangerous and fast projectiles.

They kill the targets and destroy a part of the building with less collateral damage on uninvolved people. But this must have been a huge bomb!  
It also killed everybody within a radius of 10 meters around the hospital.

"I won´t find anything here! This is a mess and I don´t want… whoa" Kitty stumbled over something on the ground but was able to regain her balance.  
She kneed down and eyed the object which almost made her fall. As she realized what it was she fell back and crawled away from it as fast as she could.  
Her eyes widened and here heart beat faster. "No. No. No." she repeated.

It was the most disgusting thing she saw and it fueled her anger against the Bomber to pure rage.  
It was the corpse of an infant which was probably burned to death. It´s little arms and legs were pressed on his charred body.  
But the worst thing was the expression on the infants face.

His mouth was opened wide like his eyes which were missing eyeballs but that happens if somebody gets burned. The eyes literally evaporate.  
The infants face looked like it uttered a last painful scream. Kitty stood up. She just wanted to get out of here as fast as she could.

She saw many terrible things but this overcame all of them. She ran back to the group of operation vehicles where Keswick stood.  
He was just coordinating some younger agents as Kitty arrived there.

"It´s h..h..hard, isn´t it?" he asked her as he saw the expression on her face.  
"I´ve never seen something so disturbing!" she admitted.  
"You d..d..don´t have to be ashamed, Kitty. I had a rough idea what I w..w..would find there and decided not to go there."  
"I´m not ashamed! But you shouldn´t send the young agents in there. It will traumatize them!"

"They have to l..l..learn." replied Keswick. "And we can´t always decide w..w..where they should collect their experiences. You should k..k..know this."  
Kitty remembered when she visited a crime scene as part of Dudley´s training as if it was yesterday.  
Both just arrived there and Dudley annoyed her again and wanted her to buy him something.

She had heavy migraine also on that day so she sent him alone without any warning into the house to get some silence.  
That was a great mistake because it was the crime scene of a double murder. Two blood covered body which made  
Dudley almost puke on them as he entered the house. But he was able to do this into one of the flower beds in the front yard.

It was just too much for the poor guy. However Dudley worked after that on that case so concentrated and focused like Kitty never seen it before.  
He almost solved the case alone! "If Dudley really wanted something he was able to release an unbelievable potential!"

She thought but the corrected herself. "No he is, Kitty! He is! Think positive." She looked over the ruins and  
watched the younger agents searching for evidence in the debris. It was a small group this year just three new recruits.  
And every year their number declines. You would think that today's kids would be keen on becoming T.U.F.F. agents  
but somehow the kids changed their attitude to being a secret agent.

Kitty smiled and saw the recruits beginning to dig for something. Keswick stepped beside her.  
"They´re k..k..kind of cute. They really think that they´ll f..f..find something."  
"I just hope that they won´t find what I have found. I mean I can handle this, I´m a professional, but they…"  
Kitty stopped as she saw that Brian ran up to the little group.

He yelled something that Kitty didn´t understood because she was too far away but she recognized by his aggressive gesticulations that he was angry.  
The recruits became smaller and smaller the longer Brian screamed at them. He not stopped until one of the agents ran away crying.

"What´s w..w..wrong with him?" asked Keswick.  
"I can tell you that!" shouted Brian while he tramped towards them. "This foolish amateurs destroying evidences!"  
"Which e..e..evidences?" Keswick wondered.

"WHICH EVIDENCES?!" bawled Brian so angry that he spat at Keswick.  
"Brian, calm down." said Kitty. "You know that we won´t find anything there! What´s wrong?"  
Brian tried to calm down as good as possible. "It´s just… Well… This attacks! I can´t sleep, I can´t eat and even think clearly! I´m totally stressed out!"

Kitty now saw the weary features in his face and even though he wore sunglasses she could saw the dark circles around his eyes.  
Besides she smelled something in his breath. "Brian, have you drunk something?" Brian looked guilty to the ground. "It´s just… well… It helps!"

"Brian, you´re completely overworked. Go home and sleep your drunkenness off!" Kitty laid her hand on his shoulder and gave him a sympathetic look.  
"Your right, Kitty. I have to sleep." Brian smiled tired at her and walked to a female agents from the group he intimidated earlier.  
"You! Drive me home!" he ordered the agent in a stern voice. She nodded cringed but did as she was told.

"Poor Brian" said Kitty.  
"Yeah." Keswick sounded sarcastically and angrily but just because he was still busy removing Brian´s spit out of his face.  
"Anyway Kitty, any ideas about the c..c..case."  
"Just that the Bomber is getting more aggressive. I mean a children´s hospital?! That´s just sick!"  
"I also n..n..noticed that. And I think the whole thing is really strange! First this eight years of p..p..peace and the attacks starting again."

"I know what you want to say." Meant Kitty. "Why this time of truce? That doesn´t make sense."  
"Well, I know but now we´re i..i..investigating… again. And even if this FBI a..a..agent steals all of our evidences again, we´ll get this s..s..sick psychopath!"  
declared Keswick convinced.

"I do not doubt that, Keswick." Kitty laughed. She took a look at her watch and  
saw that her working time was already over. "Well, I´m going home. It´s time."  
"Okay Kitty." Keswick looked preoccupied down on his clipboard but then remembered something.  
"Kitty, d..d..don´t forget… The funeral is tomorrow evening." He called to Kitty who was already on the half way to her car.

"Don´t worry, I´ll be there" she said without looking back at him and walked away. Keswick focused back on his clipboard. On it was just an empty piece of paper on which he was drawing matchstick men. He had nothing to do and drawing these little comics was a really good way of passing the time. This time he drew not one of these love peace and harmony comics, he just drew suicidal snapshots.

The little matchstick man cut themselves, jumped from high buildings or even hung themselves.  
"I s..s..should stop this." He put away the clipboard, searched for a place to sit down and sat down.  
He wasn´t sad even if Dudley´s dead still put a stain on him. He was more worried, about Kitty.  
Worried about the moment when she will finally realize that Dudley was really dead.

The thing what she called 'hope' was just the desperation of someone who don´t accept the truth. A veil she has put up to protect herself.  
And when this veil gets cut through the consequences for her will be serious.  
The thing was that Keswick now had found the final evidence for Dudley´s dead.

So he was the knife that could cut the veil. "Kitty, I don´t want to find your c..c..corpse. I don´t want to have your death on my conscience.  
But you c..c..can´t live forever like this! You have to move on!" When he ended this thought he stood up and felt damp on the backside of his pants.

"Eww… on what have I sat?" Keswick stuck his fingers into the puddle on which he was sitting before and  
gazed at the little crystals that were deposited on his fingers. He has seen this kind of crystals before.  
"I know this… if I´m not m..m..mistaken. That´s a clue!" He ran to his clipboard and wrote down 'Composite Compound 4'. "C4!"  
thought Keswick and it felt like a little triumph. They were again one step closer on catching this criminal.

But the fact that the Bomber not just increased his brutality he also increased the quality of his equipment scared Keswick.  
But a barbarous murdering psychopath with military equipment who stopped at nothing, who was always ready to kill and didn´t differentiate between adult or child and male or female, would frighten everyone to death. But being one step closer was a good feeling.

"Uhm… Mr. Keswick?" one of the recruits stood behind him and wanted to know something.  
"Yes." Said Keswick with an overly didactic voice which he was just using on this year´s new agents because he thought that  
they were keener to learn than the years before.

"We haven´t found anything in this ruins. I think we´re done here." Keswick liked the lack of confidence he heard in their voices that  
made him feel like a father that have to teach them.  
"You´re r..r..right. YOU won´t f..f..find something important there. Of course I found something."  
"Really?! What?"  
"You sound s..s..surprised."

"Well, I…I.." The young agent stammered and his face became red. As he watched him for a short moment Keswick asked himself if  
he also looked so stupid when he was stammering. After almost 30 seconds Keswick decided to release the recruit.

"Don´t w..w..worry" he laughed. "I was also s..s..surprise for me that I found something. Now collect the equipment with your colleagues. We move out!"  
"Yes Sir!" the recruit saluted and ran back to the other two who were waiting beside the T.U.F.F. equipment truck.  
"Sir…" Keswick said amused to himself. "I could g..g..get used to that."

**-We´re making making big steps on the way to the end... but there are still some chapters left. And we also still have to bring Dudley back :)-**


	19. Chapter 19

Dudley jumped into the car and screamed "Go! Go! Go!" Frank gazed surprised at him and hit the gas.  
It went almost perfectly in the nuclear power plant. He found the place where he should go immediately and  
had no problems to integrate the device into the wiring.

That was even for Dudley surprising because usually Kitty was the one who handle everything what was concerned with wires and cables.  
But as already mentioned it just went almost perfect. While Dudley was about hop over the fence which was  
surrounding the power plant a guard saw him and opened the fire without any warning.

It seemed like he was down on his luck because one bullet grazed his right side and left a bleeding but not too deep wound.  
Dudley held his hand pressed on his bleeding side. "Do you have some alcohol in here?" he asked his driving father.

"Why should I have alcohol in my car?" Dudley took his hand from his side  
and showed him his bloody paw. "Oh my… Dudley! We have to take you to the hospital!"  
"No it´s okay!" meant Dudley and forced himself to smile distorted with pain on his face. "It´s just a scratch.  
And we also have no time for a hospital visit. But I should disinfect the wound."

And then he remembered that there was a hip flask in one of his pockets. "Good that I had no time to drink the last days."  
He thought and opened the screw-cap. Dudley took a sip to prepare himself for the next step.  
While the Vodka ran down his throat he tipped the hip flask over his wound.

"Awww!" he screamed painfully which made Frank abruptly turn around.  
"You could at least warn me!"  
"Oh sorry for that!" Dudley moaned sarcastically. It burned like fire but Dudley knew that it was important to disinfect the wound.

"I hope the bleeding will stop soon… Let´s just drive to Möbius house and get me back to my time."  
"Well…" Frank grinned like a thief who was caught as he reached into the cash box.  
"Well?"  
"Well, I thought you could help me with something before you go… You know a father and son action!"

"Really? A father and son action? Or should I help you with your project again?"  
"Well… more the second." And again had Frank this caught expression on his face. Dudley was about to refuse this offer  
but then he thought that there will be no more moments which he could share with his father in the future. "Okay. I´m in! What is it?"

"Great Dudley" Frank seemed noticeably delighted about Dudley´s assurance.  
"After you told me that there was no FBI-file I thought about it. I found it very weird. I mean the whole thing was just weird!  
Why is there no file if a FBI agent always confiscates all our evidences. So I made a plan." Frank rummaged under his seat for something  
with one hand while he was holding the steering wheel with the other one.

"Do you really think that you should turn your eyes away from the street?" Frank just threw a newspaper on Dudley´s lap as answer.  
He read fast over the title page. It was about a new attack of the Petropolis Bomber. He blew up a congress of politicians and like always  
there were a lot of wounded and dead.

"So there was again an attack." Remarked Dudley coldly.  
"Right! The police must have collected enough stuff now. The FBI agent will arrive there soon. And we will have… a nice little talk with him."

"Okay. Good idea!" praised him Dudley. "When will we arrive… wherever we drive."  
"Petropolis police HQ. It will take us circa 15 minutes. So we have some time to talk… Do you realized that we had no time to talk yet?"

"That´s not my fault." Protested Dudley. "You spent almost all the time with the hunt on the Bomber!"  
"I´m not blaming you, Dudley. And I´m sorry for that. I´ll make it up to you, Stan and Peg. I promise!"  
Dudley wished that someone could change the future and save his dad. But he slowly began to realize after what he seen at the Katswell´s house.

That he couldn´t change anything in the past. He could just establish the conditions of the future. What was somehow connected  
with Keswick´s drivel about this causality thing. "He said 'if that´s even possible'… Do I have a choice at all?!" again it was Frank who  
pulled him out of his dark thoughts.

"Well Dudley, how is your life in the future? How is it to be a T.U.F.F. agent?"  
"It´s cool! The people are friendly, the payment is good, the villains are… were almost harmless and I have a really great partner."  
"That sounds good. And this partner, how is he?"

"She is great" corrected Dudley and watched Frank giving him a mischievous grin.  
"She? A lady? Do you like her?"  
"Yes" admitted Dudley coyly. "I really like her. She´s my best friend. I think I even… love her!"  
"You love her?" asked Frank surprised.

"Yeah. We´ve been through a lot and we´re like I said best friends. She really knows me and I know her. And after a year working  
with her I realized that I not just have a crush on her."  
"Does she knows that, too?"  
"That´s the problem I don´t know if she loves me and…"

"Ah, come on!" exclaimed Frank. "Don´t be too shy! You´ll never get an answer if you don´t try! It was the same with me and your mother.  
I almost lost her to another guy because of my shyness. But I made! And that´s the reason why you´re here."

Dudley remained silent because he knew that he spoke the truth. "Hey and there´s another thing! You really love this girl?  
So what was that about you have no reason to fight? You have her! So fight for her! Tell it to her!"

"But if she…"  
"NO! No buts! That´s life! It´s a struggle! You can´t always win it but you can always fight!" Frank´s words moved something in  
Dudley they brought him to a decision.  
"You´re right!" he finally said. "I´ll tell her my feelings as soon as I´m back. You can´t win if you risk something, right?"

"Right!" laughed Frank happy to see his son so motivated. "By the way, we´re here!"  
Dudley looked through the windscreen and saw how a guy in black suit bossed around a few policemen who loaded the trunk of his car with brown boxes.  
"That´s our man!" Frank pulled his gun out and loaded it.

"Dad, we can´t shoot him! We need some answers first. And even if we have to shoot him we won´t shoot him on the street especially  
not in front of the police station!"  
"I won´t shoot him! I just do this precautionary." He holstered his gun.  
Meanwhile had the policemen finished loading the trunk and the FBI agent drove away without even thanking the policemen for their help.

He just let the policemen stupidly standing in the cold of the night. Frank started the engine of his car again which he  
had shut down while they were watching the scene. He slowly followed the agent´s black car and left always enough distance between  
him and the car so the FBI guy didn´t get the feeling that he was chased.

Until they passed the city boarders he kept this distance. And right after they passed the sign on which was written Petropolis in big letters,  
Frank cranked down the window and put a red police siren on the car top. As the siren started to wail the black car in front of them  
drove to the side of the road. Frank parked his car right behind the other.

"Okay, I´ll do this!" He pushed Dudley who was about to take of his seat belt gently back in his seat. "I just want you here as backup…"  
"But why? Why just as backup?"  
"Because this guy is dangerous and… well… I want to know that you can travel safe home! You´re the future!"

Frank winked happily at him and left the car. He walked slowly towards the FBI agent´s car. "I´m not a child!"  
thought Dudley and looked out of the car window. He watched the Petropolis river flowed under him.  
"Wait… why are we on the river?" He saw now that the car hasn´t stopped on a normal street, it was on a bridge!

Dudley suspected something, but that was impossible he would never forget that. He looked at the date that was printed  
on the newspaper just to make it sure. The 8th of February. Panic arose in him. It was the right date and the time.  
"Shit…" Dudley fiddled with shivering fingers on his belt buckle and tried desperately to open it. But it stucked. "Come on!"  
He looked out of the car´s front window and saw how his dad knocked the black cars window.

Dudley finally broke loose from the belt trap and jumped out of the car. "Dad, no!" screamed Dudley. But it was too late.  
The agent held a gun out of the open window and pulled the trigger. The next events happened in slow motion for Dudley.  
The bang of the gun went right through him. He heard the tires of the black car screeching on the asphalt and saw  
his dad tumbling towards the railing of the bridge.

Blood dropped down from Frank´s chest and it became more and more. His moves were now fully uncoordinated, it looked like he  
struggled against falling every step. Dudley ran towards him and saw his dad clang to the railing with both of his hands. Frank´s eyes were  
widened and he turned his head to Dudley who now stood beside him.

He saw that Frank had a big hole in his chest from which the blood spurted out like out of a garden hose. "DAD!" Dudley pressed  
his hands on his father´s wound and tried in a last desperate move to prevent the blood from streaming out. Frank let one hand go  
from the railing and pushed Dudley´s hands weak away from his chest.

He shook his head like he wanted to tell Dudley that it´s useless to try this.  
"No Dad no." cried Dudley. Franks breathed heavier and shorter. He coughed up a lode of bloody mucus and smiled at Dudley.  
"Don´t fight for me… it´s over" Frank leaned over the railing, lost his balance and fell down into the river.  
"NO!" Dudley shouted after his dad´s falling body.

The 8th February, a cold day. The day Frank Puppy died.


	20. Chapter 20

"Where the heck is he?!" I paced up and down between the kitchen and his living room of Möbius house.  
My only wish in this moment was that Dudley would come in with his stupid grin on his face saying something like "Sorry, I´m late"  
so I could scream him down to my heart's content.

How could he even be too late? I gave Dudley the chance to send him back and he was delayed. Again and again I looked at the door.  
But he just didn´t come in.  
"He is here when he is here." called Möbius sunk relaxed from his armchair. "You know that´s an old saying from ge…"

"I KNOW WHERE THIS SAYING COMES FROM! I KNOW ALMOST EVERYTHING!" I shouted at him.  
"Okay, okay but calm down. We still have three hours before the conditions are acceptable to try. Why are you so nervous?"  
Möbius seemed very surprised not just by my reaction but also that I even was able to have such reactions.

We have known each other since five years. As we first met after he published his first theories and  
I warned him about the direction in which his research was going, I tried to be as emotionless as possible to maintain a distance between each other.  
Otherwise we would just be much in tune with each other.

"Because it is much at stake for me!" I shuddered at the thought of what would happen to me. Just a punishment would not be enough.  
The council would ban me. That was my greatest fear. A ban would mean that I have to stay on this world, on this level of existence… A disgusting thought for me.

"Really, so much to lose? I thought you were kind of independent. A creature with great powers that just tries to spend his time somehow."  
"Uhm, No!" I clarified decisively. "It is my job and somehow also passion to help your people. But after all it is a job and I also got superiors."

"But if you like helping us so much why do you need Dudley? Why don´t you just leave him alone?" The scientist in Möbius began to work now.  
He knew basic facts but he wanted to know the connections between them.

"Through the superiors came rules. In my case the big and annoying rule is that I am not allowed to intervene directly. And that is where Dudley comes in."  
"Okay… But it´s still hard for me to imagine that you have to follow any rules." Möbius sat up in his chair and eyed me closely.

"I suppose that you´re nervous because you´ll maybe get punished because you obviously broke this rule."  
"Yes" I answered shortly. I just didn´t want to think about this too long. It would have made me more and more nervous and  
that was exactly what I not needed.  
"By the way, this Dudley, what is so special about him he just…"  
"Looks rather nondescript?" I completed. "Yeah, maybe. But that is good. They underestimate him and that is an advantage.  
Nobody would suspect the nice childish white dog to for example to plant a bomb in a bank."

"Hm…" Möbius now stood up from his chair and had a stretch. "Well, nevertheless it´s strange. He seemed so curious to get to his time this morning.  
And now he´s late…" That was true. There had to be something that stopped Dudley. "Okay…" I scratched the back of my head and thought about it.

At the same time my gaze roamed around in the room and stopped at the wall calendar.  
"No." I said apathetically and walked to the armchair that was on the other side of the armchair Möbius stood next to. "What?" he asked.

"It´s the 8th. I forgot, that is the day when his father dies."  
"What?" Möbius repeated. "Are you sure about that?"  
"Of course! I know his history and the history of almost everybody that matters on this planet. Also yours!"

"Okay. Then tell me where I was born." He really tried to test me and I was willing to play that game. "In a little village called Hellenheim. 51 years ago."  
I flopped onto the armchair while answering the question.

"Okay, you know this but how could you forget the thing with his father? I think that´s very poor for somebody who claims to know everything!"  
"Touché!" I replied laughing just because it was true. My laugh was interrupted by a knocking on the door.

"I hope that´s him…" Möbius stood up from the armchair and shuffled tired to the door to open it. The last twenty hours of constant working  
worn him absolutely out. He opened the door yawning. Dudley stood on the other side of it and he didn´t look good.  
His hands were covered in blood and also the right side of his white vest he was wearing under his jacket was blood soaked.

He looked really bad and that he wore a death man´s suit made the view for a knowing specter much more macabre.  
Like Möbius I also stood up from my armchair and walked towards Dudley.  
"Hey…" I said softly.  
"Hey…" Dudley replied and stared at the ground.

"I know what happened Dudley… do you want to talk?"  
"No." He was uncommunicative but that was no surprise for somebody who saw his father dying recently.  
Nevertheless he seemed composed in his sadness. I wondered if he already let off steam on somebody or something.

"I am sorry. Frank did not deserve that. No one deserves that. I am so sorry. Come sit down."  
I pointed at one of the armchairs. While Dudley walked to it and sat down I was filling a glass with whiskey from the wall unit.  
I walked back to him and handed him the glass.  
"I am not a defender of extreme alcohol excesses but it will make you feel something again."

I laid the glass in his hand. He hardly grabbed it but then suddenly emptied it at a gulp.  
Dudley contorted his face disgusted. "Oh my god what is that?" I grinned at Dudley and said.  
"A really, really bad whiskey. Möbius is maybe a genius but he has no idea how a good whiskey should taste."

"Every genius has its idiosyncrasies, right?"  
"Right." I laughed. "Well. You want to talk now? It will help."  
"I.. I think I´m just shocked." Began Dudley. "I mean I knew that it would happen but…"  
"You just can´t stand that you can´t help." I interrupted him.

"Yes… I mean the thing with Kitty and Kerry and then this! It just makes me feel so guilty. I really wished you brought  
me away from here earlier so that I wouldn´t have to burden me with this guilt."  
I choose my next words carefully because I didn´t want to say Dudley that he shouldn´t be such a crying baby.

"That is something that you have to learn to handle. You will do much more marginally things which will make you guilty. But…  
We will talk about that later. Now we have to bring you back. Follow me." I took Dudley´s hand and dragged him downstairs into a little lab.

"Look at the beauty that will bring you back." I indicated at a weird apparatus which stood in the middle of the room.  
It was made of three big metal rings with a diameter of 3 meters. The rings were so arranged that they formed a sphere.  
Between the two points where the three rings crossed was a connection made of an iron pole.

The ends of the pole were fixed into the wall. In the middle of the pole, what was also the center of the sphere, was put up an old bike seat.  
"That´s it?" asked Dudley surprised by the simplicity of the structure.  
"Of course. What have you expected?"

"Something more complicated. With more blinking lights!"  
"The rings are full of technology and I had to lay a giant cable through the front yard! But I can tack some fairy lights on it if that makes you happy."  
Dudley gave a little laugh.  
"I would appreciate that!"

"Hey, Dudley. I have to give you some instructions before you go back. And I have one question."  
"Ask and tell!" he said.  
"You seem composed, why?"

"I already finished with his dead years ago. It doesn't mean that I´m not sad about that or angry about the guy who killed him but  
I already been through that when I was ten! It´s easier… but it still hurts. And also I have the hope that I´ll get this guy in the future."  
He explained with a now motivated undertone.

"Good. That is exactly what I wanted to hear." In this moments I´m feeling kind of proud of him. But I´m proud of everyone on this planet who  
has a motivation.  
"Okay, I will tell you something about what you should avoid when your back." I took a very small projector out of my pocket and  
pointed with it at the wall. A light beam projected pictures at the wall. "You remind me of Keswick" remarked Dudley amused.

"Yeah, he is also the first part of the presentation." A bad snapshot of Keswick in which it seemed that a tennis ball was about to hit him  
flashed up on the wall. "Please do not be angry on him. He is really down because he thinks it is his fault that you´re dead."  
"I´m not angr… Wait, dead?" interjected Dudley perplex.

"Yes… They think you are dead… You will see it when you are there." I pressed a button on the device in my hand and  
a picture of Kitty while she was dancing was projected at the wall. "I know… I just have very inconvenient photos.  
But I chose Kitty here to remind you that you should think about what you tell the people. Especially you should not tell this to her…  
the unknown T.U.F.F. agent was her reason to launch her career as a T.U.F.F. agent."

"I see what you mean."  
"Oh, okay. Then I´m already done…" Surprised that he understood what I meant so fast I put away my mini projector.  
"Here take these safety glasses and then sit down on the seat now. I think we can start in a few seconds." Dudley put on the glasses and  
walked hesitantly like he finally realized that it maybe was a bad idea to travel through time in a self-build time machine into the sphere.

As he sat down he suddenly gave me a scared look. "Uhm.. why is this seat wobbling?" He now eyed the apparatus closer.  
He discovered some wires sagging out of the rings. "Is this really save?!"  
"There is a 74 percent chance that you get peeled like an onion." I mentioned with an almost casual tone in my voice.

"WHAT?! AND FOR WHAT ARE THESE GLASSES!?"  
"Protection… I will leave this room but me and Möbius will watch you over some cameras. So… good luck." I left the room and Dudley was alone.  
He gazed unbelieving after me.  
"So that is my 'friend'… With friends like this, who needs enemies?" Dudley tried to get comfort on his seat and tried to ignore the picture of himself peeled.

And as he already saw himself cut in pieces the rings started to rotate. "Okaaay..." The rings became faster and faster.  
Lightnings flashed around the sphere. Dudley wasn´t able to see the rings anymore because they were so fast.  
And suddenly after a few more lightnings the area around him began to fade away. Everything what he saw was white now.

From my point of view Dudley was now in the middle of a white energy discharge. And seconds later he and the discharge were gone.  
Almost at the same time all lights went off. Not only in the house also on the streets, in the neighborhood and in the rest of the city.  
It was a complete power failure.

"Do you think it worked?" Möbius looked at me worried. Not because of Dudley but because he thought  
that maybe the whole work of the last hours were in vain.  
"I will find it out. You better delete your memories. By the way how are you doing that?"

"A special mix of ingredients."  
"Tequila with cinnamon and oranges?"  
"Yep, works always." Said Möbius baldly and walked into his kitchen to begin the process of forgetting.


	21. Chapter 21

The day finally arrived and everybody wondered that the time flew away so fast. The mourners stood in a queue in front of the hole in which the empty casket were let down. The whole ceremony was more symbolic nature. Made for all relatives so they can say goodbye, that they can draw a line under the whole thing. Also Kitty Keswick and the chief stood in this queue to say some last words to the casket.

"It´s a nice f..f..funeral" whispered Keswick to Kitty and the chief.  
"Yep" agreed the chief. "T.U.F.F. spared no expands to pay its last respects to Dudley. Oh and Mrs. Puppy invited us three to a little get-together after the funeral at her house." The queue moved first relatively fast but as people like Dudley´s friends or his mother stood in front of the hole it became slower.

"Are you two as c..c..curious as I am to see this guy who will give Mrs. Puppy her part of the legacy?" asked Keswick.  
"That won´t happen." Kitty meant convinced. "I already said it. He isn´t dead. So this guy won´t give Peg anything"

"Kitty." Keswick sighed annoyed. "THIS w..w..won´t happen. I didn´t want to say that but… I have the evidence that he´s dead. Dudley had his c..c..communicator with him and when he had been teleported somewhere else I would have got a signal from it. But that never h..h..happened! Accept it Kitty!" He finally said it and immediately regretted it.

"You lie!" stammered Kitty. "You lie! You…"  
"Kitty, I would l..l..like to say 'yes, I lie' but that would be a lie. I´m sorry." The queue moved again only two people were left before it was the chief´s, then Keswick´s and then Kitty´s turn to say goodbye.

"Why haven´t you told me that before." Kitty breathed while she was fighting against her tears.  
"I just f..f..found it out yesterday."  
"And you couldn´t tell me that afterwards?" Her voice sounded cracked.  
"Sorry but I had to tell you the t..t..truth. And I thought this is the b..b..best place to let out your sorrow."

Kitty fell silent. She clenched her teeth and tried to hold back the tears that began to roll down her cheeks. It felt that Dudley died two times. First after the message in the office but after Keswick said the thing with the 0.0001 percent she thought that he was just far away and on his way back. But now after this bad news she felt it again. This indescribable emptiness inside of her.

And now as she knew that she loved him it felt much worse than two weeks ago. The chief now stood in front of the grave looking at the coffin in the hole. "Your time just came too early." He shook his head sadly and then made room for Keswick. "Well Dudley. This is the e..e..end. You were one of the few who treated me like a r..r..real friend. I´m sorry for that all."

Keswick turned away and attended the crowd of sad looking people which was talking near the grave. Kitty was the last one who could say goodbye. "I…" she fall onto her knees and finally let out all the grief inside of her.

The assembled mourners watched her until Peg took action. "Everybody, I would appreciate it if you all would come to my house. We will have a little get-together there and of course everybody who knew Dudley is invited to join me." Peg spun on her heels and called.

"Follow me." Kitty still kneed there as the crowed dissolved. Everyone left except the chief and Keswick who didn´t want to leave Kitty alone. But both kept a certain distance from her.  
"Poor Kitty." Said the chief. "It´s hard to lose somebody you love."  
"She loved him?" asked Keswick surprised.

"Of course. And, as you heard in his video will, he loved her."  
"How do you know?"  
"I saw it on the first day they met. He always had a crush on her. It grew and became love. Kitty needed a bit more time but it was the same in the end. But that they were in love would had seen a blind man." Explained the chief sadly.

Keswick looked at Kitty and thought. "Seems like I´m a b..b..blind man. A blind man that destroyed a g..g..growing love before it had the chance to bloom. Damn…" Keswick turned to the chief. It was finally time for truth.

"Chief, you have to arrest me."  
"What?! Why?" he was confused by Keswick´s statement.  
"Because I killed agent P..P..P…" The sound of a loud electrical crackle interrupted him. It seemed to come out of nowhere and it even interrupted Kitty in her grieving. The three looked at the spot where it seemed to come from.

The crackle became louder. Kitty, the chief and Keswick gathered and kept gazing perplex at the place where the thing they just heard became visible. Lightnings flashed and the three stepped back. The lightnings concentrated in one point and became a white energy discharge. A scream issued from the white light ball.

The discharge dissolved and the three saw Dudley standing with his back turned on them there and screamed. "NOOOO… Oh" He seemed to realize that he was out of the discharge. He looked down at himself.

"I´m alive? YEEEAAAHHH!" Dudley started to laugh manically and also did a little dance. Even if dance would have understated what he done. He jumped up and down then he pretended to play a guitar and then he even sang. "Live to win nanana till the life nananana… Yeah!" As this euphoria waned he turned around.

Dudley saw the three standing there with they´re jaws wide open. He walked determinedly towards Kitty grabbed her shoulders and asked.  
"Which year do we have?" Kitty stared at him with her eyes wide opened and stuttered. "2012."  
And Dudley began to laugh manically again.

"I´M BACK! IT WORKED! IT WORKED!" He continued dancing.  
"What the hell?!" the chief exclaimed and described exactly what Keswick and Kitty thought.  
"Is that you Dudley?!"

"Of course! Oh and I´m sorry that I´m late for work." He smiled mischievous. Then he looked around. "Why are you three on the graveyard?"  
"Because we visited your f..f..funeral!" remarked Keswick.  
"Funeral?! I was just gone for one day!" Dudley already forgot the advisors words again, about his 'death'

"Dudley, you were missing for two weeks! We thought you had a car accident! We thought you grove over the cliff and died!" the chief said. Dudley turned around and looked at the gravestone with his name on it. "Why are all of you constantly giving me up?! That is really…" Dudley was interrupted by Kitty who hugged him.

"I knew you would come back." She cried and the tears began to flow. Dudley would have hugged her back but the wound on his side still hurt. "Aww…" he howled. Kitty stepped back and saw that his vest was covered in blood. "Oh my… Dudley!"

"Oh that?" Dudley looked down at his vest. "Oh, that? Just a scratch. Nothing more. I´m just too happy to be back to feel any pain right now! Except someone is pushing on this wound. But I could use some new clothes!" Dudley walked past through three and towards the T.U.F.F. mobile.

"By the way, could you three drive me to my Mom´s house? I want to tell her the good news and have a shower!" The three were so perplex that they fulfilled his wish. After 30 minutes of unbelieving silence of Kitty, Keswick and the chief while Dudley was grinning like an idiot they arrived at the Puppy´s house.

Dudley jumped out of the car, ran to the door and smashed it open. A completely nonplussed and also afraid crowed of people stared at him.  
"Hi everyone! I´m back." He walked through the crowed, grabbed a towel out of a closet and went upstairs to have a shower.

Kitty walked followed by Keswick and the chief into the house and everybody looked wondering at them. "Don´t look at u..u..us! We´re as surprised as you all!" said Keswick. He with the chief on his shoulder sat down on an empty stool. Kitty preferred it to stand. Nobody had any idea what just have happened but one thing was clear, Dudley had the sensitivity of a fragmentation grenade.

They all were completely quiet and listened at the shower. They heard how the water was turned on and how somebody walked into the shower. Then they heard Dudley singing what was normally not possible but because it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. "Carry on my wayward son, there will peace when you are done. Lay your weary head to rest. Don´t you cry no more…" he really sang the whole song and even imitated the instruments.

Then the water was turned off. And after some seconds they heard steps coming down the stairs. Dudley was just dressed with a towel.  
"I´m sorry but I didn´t find any of my clothes here!"  
"Dudley! Answers! Please!" Roxanna shouted who was also in the crowed.  
"Well…" Dudley couldn´t tell them the truth. They wouldn´t even believe the truth. He had to invent a coherent lie in three seconds.

"… I drove over the cliff and then… I woke up! Yes… I woke up on a little island in the sea… I had to settle up a camp and lived mainly on coconuts… Then after a few days I began to build a boat to get away… then I collected some supplies and used the boat and… now I´m here!" The listeners looked with dumb faces at him.

"Yeah… that´s exactly how it happened!" he added.  
"Okaaaay!" Peg stood up from her chair. "Everybody, I think there is no more need for an  
after-funeral-get-together. So…" The people knew what she wanted to say and stood up from their seats and left the house. Only Kitty, the chief and Keswick stayed.

Peg jumped at Dudley and hugged her son happily. "Don´t dare doing this to me again!" she said crying a little. Dudley tried this time not to haul because of the pains from his wound.  
"Thanks Mom…" he moaned. "How about you´re making some tea or coffee for us?"

"You want to talk to your friends?" Peg understood immediately. "Okay, but we talk later! I want to hear everything!"  
"Of course Mom." Peg walked into the kitchen and Dudley turned around to the others.

"Okay guys, truth now."  
"Oh, so the island story wasn´t true." The sarcasm in Kitty´s voice was impossible to not to hear.  
"No" grinned Dudley. "I had a little trip, I was the whole time in Petropolis. But not today…" Dudley began to tell them a little changed version of that what happened. He left out the part with Kitty and her sister, his father and the advisor and other little differences.

After he finished they looked with the same dumb expression at him like earlier when he told the lie. Especially the chief had no idea what Dudley was talking about. So he remained silent. "This story sounds crazier!" meant Kitty amazed.

"Yeah, I know. But we´ll talk about this tomorrow in the office. I think we have to digest the whole thing. Oh and Kitty, can I talk to you under four eyes?"  
"It´s okay, we´ll go." Said the chief fast. "And Keswick, you´ll explain this whole thing to me in the car." He added as they walked through the door.

Kitty looked expectantly at Dudley who began to blush. "Well, Kitty… I have to tell you something that means a lot to me…" Dudley took a deep breath "I.. I wanted to say… to say that…"  
"Oh come on!" Said Kitty annoyed. She grabbed him and kissed him. As she moved apart from him she said. "I saw your video will. And I love you too you crazy mutt."

Dudley´s heart leaped for joy.  
"I love you Kitty Katswell…" they hugged each other again but this time for a longer time and also Kitty paid attention that see didn´t press on his wound. "So what happened here the last days.. or weeks?" asked Dudley as they moved apart. "I have Brian as a temporary partner and we still try to catch the Bomber. But now you can help us."

"I´d love to!" Dudley agreed happily "By the way, I need a place to sleep and I don´t want to sleep here again."  
Kitty looked at him smiling. "You don´t waste any time, do you? Yes, I think I have a place for you. Why don´t we go to my place right now?"

"Sorry but I need to talk to Mom first and then I have to phone my bank. I hope the boys haven't looted my bank account yet." He laughed remembering his video will. "But I´ll be there at nine." He kissed her goodbye and watched her walking out of the front door.

"Finally things getting better." He thought.  
"It is still not over. Brace yourself! Tomorrow is getting… interesting." Said a voice in his head.  
"Advisor, stop speaking to me like this! It´s creepy!"  
"I know, but it´s also very efficient and funny for me." I admitted amused.

**-I hid to songs in this chapter :D Try to find them...-**


	22. Chapter 22

Dudley walked grinning through the office. The last night was just wonderful for reason that concerned just Kitty and him. He also was able to ignore all these eyes full of fear and confusion staring at him. He walked directly into the lab where Brian, Kitty and Keswick already waited.

He moved towards Kitty, kissed her gently and said. "Good morning Kitty… and rest."  
Kitty smiled at him happily. Brain stood beside them and watched them.  
"Finally." He said laughing. Keswick interrupted this intimate moment by raising his voice.

"Okay, were all t..t..together so let´s start. I´ll brief you all first. I g..g..gathered new information of the Bomber. He uses new kinds of explosives. He changed from f..f..fertilizer bombs over to C4. But I have no idea why… Maybe we can get some r..r..results if the analyze of the explosives are done. Also new is that his t..t..targets changed. Luckily the FBI has no idea that we are still i..i..investigating! So we still have the case, unofficially."

"Okay, that´s good!" meant Brian  
"I agree! The things always get complicated if the FBI comes in. It´s good to have them of our backs." said Kitty. Dudley listened attentively and as he heard the word FBI it made him prick up his ears. "FBI you said?"

"Yes. They also always came to steal this case from us. It´s nice to have an advantage this time." Brian answered.  
"Ha!" exclaimed Dudley.  
"What is it?"

"I also, let´s say, investigated in this case while I was away. And the key is this FBI agent!"  
"Why do you think so?" Brian seemed not to believe him.  
"I just know it, okay? If we can find him we´ll maybe have the Bomber!"  
"Yeah, but the problem is that we won´t find him. Hm…" Kitty looked up at the ceiling and thought how they could lure the FBI agent to them. Keswick cleared his throat.

"I know where this guy is!" Keswick remarked triumphing.  
"Really?!" the three asked in unison.  
"Yes. I was angry at that guy so I placed a tracking device in one of his pockets a few days ago. And with a little luck he maybe is wearing the jacket with this tracking device."

"But why?" asked the three in unison again.  
"Just revenge. He is on my revenge list. I would have searched for him and then I would have taught him some manners." Keswick´s voice sounded evilly.  
"Okaaay…" Kitty spoke up after an awkward moment of silent. "Thanks to Keswick´s violent temper we have a clue… Keswick, tell us where he is."

Keswick rushed to his computer and clicked with the mouse on his desktop on an icon called 'The list You don´t want to be on'. As the program started a map of the city flashed up on the screen. Ten red points moved slowly on this map.

"Are all of these people on your list?" Kitty was surprised as well as a bit scared of Keswick.  
"Of course! There is for example the paperboy who threw advertise in my mailbox even if I told him a few times that he should stop with that. I know that I don´t have a house right now but I´m still angry. And also the milkman who…"  
"I think I heard enough." Interjected Kitty. Keswick searched on the map and finally found the spot where this agent was hiding.

"He´s hiding in one of this abandoned apartment houses in south-east Petropolis. In the rat´s nest!"  
"Then what are we waiting for? Let´s get this bastard!" said Brian ready for action.  
"Right! I mean what else could we do?" Dudley was totally on Brian´s side and because Kitty had also no idea what else they could do they decided to pay this FBI guy a visit.

"I´m so excited. Finally we´ll get him." Called Brian from the backseat of the T.U.F.F. mobile in which the three of them sat now.  
"Don´t think that´ll be too easy. I mean this guy is unscrupulous!" Kitty explained. Dudley meanwhile concentrated on driving the car.

"Dad I´ll do this for you!" he thought. It was not only the chance for him to avenge his father, he could also end his father´s hunt for the Bomber. "You done this for our future. You done this for the people you loved." He gazed briefly at Kitty "I will do this for the same reasons."

As they arrived Dudley parked the car nearby the abandoned apartment house which Keswick described them. The three got out the car and walked towards the door. They pulled their guns out and Kitty gave them some last orders.

"Okay, boys I count to three then we smash the door open. Brian you take the left side and Dudley you take the right. I´ll take the middle! Understood?" Dudley and Brian nodded.  
"Okay then. One.. Two.. Three!" Kitty kicked the door open and they rushed into the entrance hall. It was filled with brown boxes.

On every box the word evidence was printed in big letters. In a circle of these boxes sat agent Taylor in his underwear. He was sitting on a box and watched at a T.V. which also stood on a box. The expression on his face said more than thousand words. He was not expected to receive any guests now.

"In the name of T.U.F.F. you are arrested." Shouted Kitty at him.  
"What? But Brian you…" Taylor was cut short by a bullet that drilled a hole through his head directly between his eyes. Kitty watched shocked how the body fell to the ground. At first she looked at Dudley but he seemed as surprised as she was.

Then she turned her gaze to Brian who still stood there with his arm raised in shooting position. "Brian… What was that? Why did he said your name?" He didn´t answered. Dudley now pointed his gun at Brian. "Brian! Explain!"  
Brian contorted his face to something that looked like a grin and began to laugh.

"That was really too easy." He giggled.  
"What the hell do you mean?!" asked Kitty.  
"Well, it doesn't make a difference now if I tell you or not. You´re dead." Brian whispered.  
"I still don´t…"

"Oh really, Kitty? You still don´t understand? I expected more from you."  
"You are the Bomber!" said Dudley suddenly.  
"Good! Very good, for somebody who is so dim like you. Yes I´m the one you were looking for! You two walked into my trap. And now put your guns down!"

"How about no? We are two and you are alone!" meant Dudley superciliously.  
"Oh come on! I of course made your guns harmless. It was easy. Yesterday night, when you two were busy. You should buy some new locks, Kitty. The olds are very easy to open." Dudley pulled his trigger several times but all what his gun made was a clicking sound.

Brian walked still pointing with his gun at them towards one of the boxes and got a rope out of it. "Sit down there!" he ordered and pointed at another one of the boxes. Kitty and Dudley followed Brian´s orders and he began to tie them up. "That was easier than expected! Just two things surprised me."

He seemed more to recall the past for himself than explaining his plot to them "One was Dudley who returned. But calculating in Dudley´s decision was luckily easy. His self-initiative is almost nonexistent so it still was just Kitty. The second thing was Keswick and this tracking device. But that made the thing just easier for me. I first thought I somehow have to lure you into here with faked evidence but thanks to Keswick, it all happened faster!"

That was like a slap in the face for Dudley and Kitty. Brian planed this all long beforehand and expected all decisions they would make.  
"Why Brian, WHY?" Kitty looked angry at him what just amused the crazy bastard.

"Ha! Because I hate this city, I hate this country, I hate the people! They are degenerated scum! There´s nothing more like kindness, charity or even real friendship between them! Everybody is just doing things for their own benefit! Or do you know a person who would sacrifice itself for its fellow

beings? NO! Old ladies get threaten by punks with their knifes and nobody gives a damn! Little kids get threaten and hurt and nobody gives a damn! People dying on the streets and nobody gives a damn! Our whole system is foul rotting organ that is slowly poisoning his host´s body!  
And I am the surgeon ready with his scalpel to cut it out."

Brian stopped tying them up. He looked at his worked and smiled. Dudley and Kitty sat there tied up with their backs at each other. He took special care about Kitty´s wrist so she was unable to move them and so to use her claws. "Good! First I didn´t want to do this but it´s somehow a vocation!"  
"What do you mean with that?!" asked Dudley with a dark suspicion in his mind of which he hoped that it won´t come true.

"My father was the original Bomber! I mean did you never asked yourself why those attacks stopped eight years ago? That was the day my father had this accident which let him fall into a coma! After we pulled out the plug three months ago, my heritage was just a letter from him with  
something in it. A mission! And also there was this thing. Dad described it in his letter.

It visited me and appointed me to be the new surgeon. So the scalpel was passed to me and after some preparation I planted my first bomb. Oh… It was great feeling! The screams, the confusion, the dead! But it wasn´t enough for me! I realized that my Dad thought on a small scale!

He never realized that the people on the bottom of the system are not a whit better than the one at the top! Give them a little money and power and they will also don´t care. So I had to kill them all! Sick and healthy, old and young, rich and poor. Their all the same, they are all scum! And it also was a pleasure for me to blow up this child hospital…"

"YOU SICK! YOU ARE JUST SICK!" screamed Kitty disgusted from Brian.  
"NO! YOU DON´T UNDERSTAND! I SAVED THESE CHILDREN! From becoming like you all!" Brain breathed heavily and had this manic expression on his face that reminded Dudley of Jeffrey Sullivan.  
"Who is this guy?" Asked Dudley and turned his head to the dead Agent Taylor.

"Just my partner. Scum like all of you! But he did everything what I paid him for. You can´t take the money with you when you die, can you Taylor?" sneered Brian at dead body. "Right… Okay. It´s time to go for me. Or do you have another question?"

"Yes this thing… What did it look like?" Dudley asked.  
"It looked like a monkey without fur apart from its head. But stood more upright and had shorter arms"  
"What about its name?" Dudley enquired again.

"I it was something like advisor or something…"  
"DUDLEY THAT DOSEN´T MATTER. ASK HIM WHAT HE WANTS TO DO WITH US!" It broke out of Kitty.  
Brian answered her by pulling out lighter and began to set some boxes in one of the corners in the room on fire.

"Bye bye. Agents." Brian bowed to them and walked out of the building. Slowly began the fire to capture the whole room. "What is the advisor up to?" thought Dudley unimpressed by the fire. "Dudley? Do you have an idea? I can´t move! Not even my claws!" He felt that Kitty was beginning to panic.

"Lay your hand into my hand."  
"I don´t think it´s time for romantic…"  
"Just do it!" ordered Dudley sternly. He held now her hand in his hand. "This will hurt a bit." He grabbed one of her claws and ripped on it fast.

"Ouch! What the hell Dudley!?" shouted Kitty. Dudley meanwhile used her claw to cut the ropes. The fire moved closer to them and Dudley sat with his eyes closed concentrated on cutting.  
"Dudley! Whatever you do hurry up!" Kitty exclaimed.

"Almost done" Dudley felt like the rope began to give away. He stood up and cut Kitty free. Both ran through the flames out of the building.  
"That was a close call!" Dudley meant and watched with Kitty the building which was embraced by the flames.

"I still can´t believe that Brian betrayed us."  
"Yeah it´s…" Dudley was interrupted by the ringing of a cellphone. Kitty first looked surprised down at herself and then pulled out her cellphone. "Yeah?"

"Congratulations! You freed yourself! You deserve a prize!" Brian´s voice came through the speaker of the phone. "I placed a 20 kiloton nuclear warhead in the Petropolis nuclear power plant. It will detonate in 30 minutes! You are free to escape!" he ended the sentence and hung up. Kitty turned towards Dudley with the shock written in her face.

"We have a problem now! A 20 kilotone heavy problem. Brain planted an atomic bomb. We have to get out of here! Now!"  
Dudley was now totally stunned. An atomic bomb! That was too much for one day. An annoyed voice in his head suddenly began to shout.

"Great this just keeps getting better and better! I mean time travels, explosions and then this bombs! I begin to miss the time when I was able to chase carefree after a ball!" And then again this damn character test. Should he stay and do the right or go and have the blood of thousands of citizens on his hands. Even if the faraway places called for him he knew that this was no option.

"We stay and defuse the bomb!"  
"What?! Are you crazy?!"  
"See, we don´t have the time to evacuate the city. So I will do it! I´m an absolute bomb defusing expert!" lied Dudley and tried to be as convincing as possible. He prayed that Kitty would buy it.

"Really?" she was unsure if Dudley could defuse a bomb but remembered about the training he wrote about in his diary.  
"Yes!" he confirmed.  
"Okay, then let´s do this! I hope your 'training' helped."  
"From where do you know from my training?"

"I read your diary… By the way, who is Becky?" Kitty waited very expectantly for Dudley´s next words.  
"A girl I used to know… nothing more. Let´s concentrate on this bomb again. We need a ride!"  
While Dudley was looking around hectically, Kitty didn´t hesitated and broke the window of a car that stood close by them. "We have a ride, let´s go!"


	23. Chapter 23

**-Well, now we are back at the beginning. And there is still this bomb…-**

Dudley opened his eyes again. The black wire was cut into two parts and Dudley still felt that he was alive. "Is it over?!" he looked at the little display but the countdown hasn´t stopped and it also didn´t fall on zero. Two minutes were added to the time. "You kidding?!" Dudley felt like somebody was pulling his leg. He sat the wire cutter on the red wire and cut it off. One minute was added to the time. "NO! COME ON NO! F*CK YOU BRIAN!"

"HAHAHAH!" Brian´s voice suddenly came from the speaker in the bomb. "I never expected that you two would come back. Your courage does you credit! But you won´t have any chance to change your fate. Every wire you cut gives you just a few minutes. So decide when you want to die! Now or in five minutes. HAHAHAHA!"

Dudley never expected that Brain was such an insane psychopath. To plant a bomb is one thing but defeat all hope by just putting faked wires into the bomb that was a brilliant sick idea. "We never had a chance." Said Dudley. "We were just pieces in a big game of chess which he systematically eliminated."

"WHAT?!" Kitty spoke through the speakers in the room.  
"It´s over. He won! This bastard won!"  
"Don´t give up! There has to be another way! Just think!" Kitty begged desperately through the speakers.

"But…"  
"THINK! YOU ARE THE EXPERT!" Dudley focused back on the bomb and concentrated all his thought on the bomb. "There must be something I have forgot! A story someone told or maybe… Wait." He reminded on a conversation he overheard a few days ago. On the kitchen table in his own house back in the year 1998. Something his brother Stan said. How he told them about what he learned at school.

"He said that he learned how a nuclear bomb works..." Dudley tried to play-back the scene. "Okay… Stan said something about that such a bomb has three parts. Two parts are mass and when they get together it makes a big bang. But first they are separated. They are put together by a propelling charge… Maybe when I remove this charge… Let´s just do this! I have no other choice anyway!"

Dudley first began to cut the other wires to gain some extra time. Now he had altogether gathered five minutes. Dudley put the wire cutter on the ground and began to rummage in the bomb. Under a metal plate which he had to remove the propelling charge was laying. It was surrounded by one part of the highly radioactive mass.

Dudley grabbed the bomb not knowing that the whole surface was hot because of the radiation. "Damn!" hissed Dudley while he pulled his hands back in pain. He looked at the display. The countdown was down on three minutes. "Why is the time go by so fast?! I mean I don´t even have fun!" He moved both hands to towards the charge and made himself ready to pull it out.

He grabbed the charge fast and pulled it out of the mass. His hand burned like he had dipped them in lava but he had to suppress the need to throw it away. Carefully he lifted the bomb up and saw that on it was a separate detonator put up. This detonator had also a little display on which the time ran down.

He walked with the bomb in his hands towards the room in which Kitty was.  
"Kitty… I got it. It´s a just a small bomb left now! Any idea where to place it?" he howled in pain.  
"Walk outside with it! But don´t come to me with that thing!" ordered Kitty afraid of the bomb.  
Dudley turned around and ran towards the doors.

He left the building and stopped on the parking lot. "Ahhhhh" he screamed as he threw the bomb away as wide as he could what was even more painful than holding the bomb because his flesh that fused with the little metal device was ripped away from his finger.

But he had no time to grieve for his skin. He turned around and rushed away from the bomb which was detonated while it was still in the air. The blast wave knocked him over and let him fall with his nose in the dirt. "Awwww…" moaned Dudley.

"Dudley are you okay?" Kitty just came out of the building and kneed next to him.  
"I just want to lie here and sleep."  
"Well you would deserve it! I mean you did it, you defused the bomb!" Kitty smiled widely at Dudley until she saw his hands.

"You need somebody who takes care of your hands!"  
Dudley tried to get back on his feet but didn´t make it without Kitty´s help. "Thanks Kitty. Do you know where Brian is?"

"He escaped! But we will inform T.U.F.F. about him. He won´t get far. By the way they should be here in a few minutes. I informed them about the bomb. And they will send reinforcement. And of course they´ll fetch us!"  
"You think about everything, right?" meant Dudley smiling.

"Of course!" She grinned at him. Both moved closer to each other and kissed while the sirens that were audible remotely became louder and louder. A bunch of T.U.F.F. cars stopped on the parking lot beside the kissing Dudley and Kitty. The chief and Keswick got out of one of the cars.

"Please tell me that this is a 'yeah we made it' kiss and not a 'last kiss before we all going to die'." Shouted the chief over to the kissing couple. Dudley and Kitty moved apart and Kitty shouted back. "It´s the first thing. Dudley defused the bomb." The chief and Keswick changed unbelieving glances.

"Really, our D..D..Dudley?" asked Keswick to make it sure. Dudley looked angry back and lifted his hands to proof the story. "Oh… Could somebody take care of this wound?!" the chief called at the other agents. Dudley immediately thanked the two agents that tended his wounds. It looked a bit like a pit stop when the car gets changed its tires as the two agents bandaged Dudley´s hands in record time.

He eyed his hands. "I think I will need some help on the toi…" A strange noise interrupted him. He looked at the horizon. Was that a helicopter which was coming? Yes it was. The Petropolis news helicopter landed on a free spot and Wolf Spitzer the news reported jumped out of it. He ran towards them. "Who is our today´s hero?" Wolf asked everybody around.

"It´s Dudley Puppy!" The chief said. Wolf walked over to Dudley, brushed his hair back and held his microphone under Dudley´s nose. "You saved the city Mr. Puppy. How do you feel?"  
Dudley who was confused by this sudden attack stammered. "Uhm… hungry and tired?"  
"Oh… well… interesting. And what was it like to knee over a nuclear war head?"

"Uhm… I haven´t thought much I just did everything to defuse it… from where do you know this?"  
"We have our sources!" Wolf turned around, ran back to his helicopter and flew away.  
"Okay, what was that?!" said Dudley.  
"That w..w..was strange!" remarked Keswick who was as confused as the others. "But anyway, let´s get b..b..back to the T.U.F.F. HQ. So you two can tell us what exactly happened."

20 minutes later stood the whole T.U.F.F. agency around the table in the tea-kitchen and listened spellbound to Kitty who told them what happened. As she ended with the words "And now we are here!" the crowd around them applauded.

"Hey everyone, shut up and look!" one out of the suddenly crowd shouted and pointed with his finger at the old T.V. that stood in the corner of the room. A newsflash with Wolf Spitzer was on. "Good evening Ladies and Gentleman. Unbelievable news from the Petropolis nuclear power plant! A nuclear warhead was defused there today by the fearless T.U.F.F. agent Dudley Puppy." A photo of Dudley was shown on which he just bit into a Donut out of which filling splashed out.

"In an interview Mr. Puppy said 'I haven´t thought much I just did everything to defuse it.' Well that´s what I call a hero! This were the news. My name is Wolf Spitzer." The agent switched the T.V. of and everybody looked at Dudley.  
"Wow.. I were on T.V." he said.

"Okay, everybody!" the chief raised his voice. "We still got work to do! We mount a search for Brian Cooper! I want to see this guy in jail as soon as possible! And I would appreciate it if someone could tell me how this guy got his hands on a 20 kiloton nuclear war head! GO!" The crowd dissolved fast and everyone rushed back to his desk.

Kitty also stood up from the table and turned to Dudley. "I think I should also go back to work! I see you tonight, fearless T.U.F.F. agent" She smiled and walked to her desk. Dudley was also about to go but Keswick stopped him.  
"Dudley I have to t..t..tell you something."  
"Okay, speak."

Keswick wiped nervously sweat away from his forehead with the sleeve of his lab-coat. "I have to apologize for this whole s..s..story. Maybe if I…"  
"It´s okay" said Dudley gently. "Everything went fine. There´s no need to feel sorry."  
"So we´re c..c..cool?"

"Yes, but you still owe me the cool sun glasses!" Laughed Dudley. A heavy weight fell from Keswick´s mind. He left Dudley and walked into the lap almost dancing in joy.  
Dudley stood alone in the tea-kitchen and looked at his hands. "I don´t think that I´m able to do office work today." He thought. "But I can still get some Donuts for them…"

**-This is still not the end. There is one last chapter left.-**


	24. Chapter 24

Everything has to end. That is some kind of natural rule. An axiom which was everything subordinated to. Nobody would oppose something to that statement. Not even Dudley. He lay in the bed beside Kitty. She was hot. Not only with regard to her physical attraction, she also radiated heat like a radiator that operated with full capacity.

But Dudley didn´t bothered about that in fact he liked it. He was sometimes cold at night so it was great for him to have somebody around who would keep him warm. But even if the day ended good for him and everything is cleared it didn´t feel for Dudley like the day was over. There was something left he had to do. He had to fulfill a promise to end it all.

So Dudley got reluctantly out of the warm bed. He grabbed his clothes and also a coat that would totally cover him. Dudley wanted to leave the building to head for a place he haven´t visited since two weeks or 14 years, that depended on the way you count. But before he walked out of the building he took a shovel out of Kitty´s cellar. Dudley took the T.U.F.F. car and drove out of the city to the river.

The little island with its trees in the middle of the Petropolis river still existed and also did the shallow spot in the river. That made it all easy for Dudley to find the inconspicuous place where he buried Samuel´s corpse. Dudley took the shovel and began to dig. Normally he had used his hands for that but they still hurt like hell. But also using the shovel was a torture for him.

An "Aww…" escaped his mouth. Already after a short time he needed a break so he rammed the shovel into the ground and turned around. No reaction was on his face recognizable as he turned around and saw me standing right in front of him.

"We have to talk." Were his only words.  
"Later." I replied. "I first will help you to fulfill your promise."  
I picked up the shovel and began to shovel the earth away. Both of us remained silent the whole time until I exposed the corpse of Samuel Thomson who was a pathetic sight.

The body was completely skeletonized and also the fighting suit Dudley put him on was rotten. I wanted to lift up the corpse but Dudley pushed me aside. He probably wanted to do this by himself. Me and Dudley walked to the car and he laid the corpse gently into the trunk.

"And do you have any idea how to get him a funeral." I finally broke the silence.  
"Yeah. I still have is wallet with driver´s license and so on. I will lay his corpse in front of the police station with the wallet in his hands. The police will identify him and then his agency will get him the funeral he deserves." I agreed with his plan by being silent.

It was not a bad plan because of the heavy decay the pathologists would lose themselves into speculations how he could be so decayed when he was missing just for two weeks. I just hoped that Dudley remembered to remove his fingerprints from the wallet. As we stopped at the police station we hurried to place the corpse and get back into the car and drive away.

"So, now it´s time to talk!" said Dudley sternly.  
"We should talk about this over a drink at your place, it will take some time."  
"No, we could wake Kitty up!"  
"Don´t worry, I promise you that I´ll be very quiet." I meant.

Dudley realized that I wouldn´t change my mind so he continued his way to Kitty´s apartment. Dudley´s eyes were pinned on the street. Something was on his mind since he saw the corpse of Samuel again.

"Does it get easier?" he suddenly asked me.  
"What do you mean?"  
"Killing. Does it get easier? I didn´t even really killed Samuel by myself and this guilt is really hard to handle. You know what I mean?"  
"I know what you mean… And no. It does not get easier. It even get harder the more you kill."  
"Great, I thought I will somehow be resistant against these feelings." Dudley sighed.

"Hey, it is good that you feel like that. You would become dull, life would have no more value for you. Only a monster would kill without any feelings. You will realize that with the time the guilt will become more and more. You maybe even see the face of everybody you kill at night, but that is okay. That means you still not one of these soulless monsters… Well, at least you will feel like that if you kill somebody who does not deserve it. And in our business there are much people, good people, who actually did not deserve death. But sometimes a good life has to be sacrificed to save thousands of others."

"You just talked about good people but what about the bad guys?"  
"Uhm… Yeah, killing bad guys really gets easier."  
"At least something." Meant Dudley.  
"Yeah but is there even anything like good or bad, black and white? I mean try to think about what is the concrete difference between you and for example Brian."

"I´m the good guy!" said Dudley like it would be a fact. "I have the right goals!"  
"Really? I think you just got different goals. Right and wrong are relative to the point of view. And then you also use the same methods to reach these goals! You kill! Exactly like them. So tell me now, where is the difference?"

Dudley didn´t answer. It seemed that what I said was kind of thought-provoking for him.  
He parked the car near the apartment building and as we got out the question burst out of him.  
"So what is the difference then?"  
"Something you have to find out for yourself. Like everybody."

"Aw man. That´s really unsatisfying… Anyway, I still have a question. Why do you gave the information about the bomb to the news? And don´t try to deny! I saw the photo in the news. Very similar to the one in your presentation." he meant.

"Oh, you realized it? Good. Well, I done this because I think you deserved your 15 minutes of fame, so enjoy them."  
After we reached the apartment building we got in as quiet as possible. While Dudley was getting glasses from the kitchen I sat down on the table in Kitty´s former weapon chamber which was still converted after the visit of her parents. Dudley sat down and pushed one of the glasses towards me.

I pulled out a Thermos bottle which I was carrying around with me and filled the glasses with earl grey tea. Dudley probably expected that I would brought some alcohol but he didn´t mention it.  
"So we are here. Tell me, what are you´re up to? Why have you ordered Brian to kill us all? Is playing with our lifes just a funny game for you?" asked Dudley bluntly.

"Straight to the point? Okay, think we had enough small talk in the car. The thing is that it was not me who cooperated with Brian!"  
"Yeah right, don´t lie to me! The description suited perfectly on you." Called Dudley mockingly and in his eyes flamed up in rage.

"Please, I swear!" I protested pleadingly. "I was as surprised as you when I heard about that!  
Please, you have to believe me. That was not me!"  
"Oh come on! Also your name was mentioned!" He retorted still unbelieving but less agressive.

"Dudley, believe me. I am on your side! I am not your enemy!"  
"Okay, then what was that?"  
"I have a suspicion. But if that becomes true… we should begin to pray." Dudley looked confused at me. He wasn´t used to hear fear in my voice.

"Really, so bad?"  
"Worse than you would imagine. I think it is one of my people. Another advisor… but one working against us!"  
"Wait wait wait… Do you all have the name advisor?"  
"That´s your only question?!" I asked nonplussed.

"Not only, but is it?"  
"Yes. Kind of, you could also say that it´s the new name of our species." I sighed.  
"Strange… does that work?"  
"Yes" I sighed again but annoyed this time. "But only because we don´t talk much to each other. That´s a sad truth about my species."

"Wait wait wait! I could give you a name! How about Keith?"  
"Hey I am not your pet! And also I do not want a name. Especially not Keith! "  
"Oh come on! That would make it easier for me! I don´t want to shout 'ADVISOR' anymore. I want something more touchable. Please! Please please please…"

When Dudley starts like this it was hard to stop him without giving him what he wants. That was the reason why I was also forced to give in.  
"Okay, okay. Give me a name… but not Keith."

Dudley scratched the back of his head and thought strenuous about the name while I looked at him and thought that he was kidding me. I have just told him about a new threat and he was thinking about a damn name!

"I have one! Even if I like Keith more… Sam! How about Sam?"  
"Well…okay." I remembered in this moment that some of my people had worse names. "That is just weird… no one of my species had a real name for ages!"

"Again you mentioned your species. You should tell me more about you." Meant Dudley.  
"Why should I?"  
"Art of war! If your suspicion is true I should get to know my enemy!"  
It was somehow right what Dudley said so I overcame the inner barrier which usually prevented me from telling the story of my people.

"It began billions of years ago. Long before your people even existed. Our species was like yours somehow. But I think we were even worse. Aggressive and egoistic, devious and deceitful. We done terrible things to each other but somehow we were also able to do deeds of great mercy…"

"Come to the point!" interrupted me Dudley bored.  
"That is important! So listen! After years of being tied to our planet we invented technologies to discover space. We wanted to find something out there so that we wouldn´t feel so alone in space. But the longer we searched we discovered that there was nothing else. Just us in the infinity.

No friends… but also no enemies. Without a unifying goal we began to turn against each other. Little arguments grew bigger and bigger and finally led to war. A war so deadly that it almost destroyed our whole race. But some of us could hide from this destruction and as the dust of war died down we came out of our holes.

We began to build everything up again like we always did after war. But this time as we were so close extinction we began to rethink. We wanted to do everything right this time. We wanted to build up a utopic society without material needs, hate and greed…"

"That´s a nice tale but again please come to the point!" yawned Dudley.  
"You cretin, the whole thing is the point! Even if we were close to this society there was always somebody who wanted to prohibit that! And as we finally after years of scientific research and philosophy found the final answer and we developed to a higher level of existence we separated!

We separated into the ones who are against the order, they want destruction and change, and the one who are on the side of the order, they want peace and constancy. From our former race arose a new species which separated into two groups. Advisors and saboteurs." I kept quiet about the fact that the advisors gave their brothers the names saboteurs.

"So that was the long and boring story of your people!" laughed Dudley meanly. "And you think that it´s one of the against the order guys?"  
"Maybe, but just imagine someone like me, with my powers and opportunities but against us."  
Dudley thought about that for a minute and a cold shiver ran down his spine.

"Please no!" he whispered.  
"Yes… But let us not jump into conclusions! I have to collect some information and then we will see… What means I will not have the chance to provide you with missions anymore. But that does not mean that you can be lazy! Simon will do that from now on."

"So that means it´s somehow the end of our cooperation?" a light trace of sadness lay in his voice but probably not because that I was going but because Simon came. Dudley and Simon never had what I would call a good relationship.

"Every end is also a new beginning, Dudley. We will see again. That is a promise!" I assured him grinning widely.  
"I count on that! I don´t think that I will have a good time with Simon."  
"Oh you will have a great time! I think the next years will be quieter."

"I know that I sound like an old man but… quiet sounds really good. It sounds like I´m not possibly get killed in every possible and impossible way. And…" he looked back to the door and then turned back. "I can enjoy being together with Kitty."

"Heaven can wait, right?"  
"With Kitty my heaven came down to earth." He said deeply in love.  
"Oh… cute." I took my glass and emptied it. "Before I go I want to give you some wise words on your way which I once received from a wise dog." I stood up from the table and cleared my throat. "Everything is going to be fine."

Dudley smiled amused at me and a blink later I was disappeared. Dudley lifted up his glass like he was pleading a toast and said. "Until we meet again, Sam." He drank the tea which was cold now in one gulp.  
"Dudley?" Dudley turned around and saw Kitty half-asleep standing in the room.

"Oh, sorry. Did I waked you up?" asked Dudley with a soft and tired voice.  
"Yes, I heard you talking to somebody."  
"It was nothing. Let´s get back to bed." Kitty agreed with without any questions mainly because she was really tired. As Dudley lay again beside her he finally felt that this day was over now.

**-The End-  
-Well that was Blow it up! But there will be one last part of this story. I haven´t written it yet but I think of letting all main villains appear, Becky, maybe Eric, the advisor and of course the new threat . So… see you soon. :D-**


End file.
